The Later Years
by Faran1078
Summary: Boone and Shannon's continuing life together after rescue. The final chapter is now up.
1. Shannon Comes Back

They were in the back yard, throwing the ball back and forth; it was early evening. Boone smiled at his son as he caught the ball and tossed it back. A movement at the back gate caught his attention. He looked over, the ball that Andrew threw catching him fully in the chest. He didn't even notice; she was standing on the grass just inside the gate, staring at the two of them. 'Shan, oh my dear god, Shan,' he thought.

She was looking at him, sadness and love in her eyes, she smiled tentatively. She felt like time had stopped. He was thinner, and his hair looked a lot lighter, she smirked at the stupidity of the things she noticed after six years of being away. She swallowed, not sure of what to say to him.

"Shannon?" the boy moved forward towards his mother, recognizing her instantly.

She glanced in his direction, not wanting to take her eyes off Boone. Suddenly the eight year old was standing right in front of her, demanding her attention. "Shannon?" he questioned again.

"Yeah," she acknowledged her name with a twist of her lips. She still only had eyes for Boone.

"I'm Andrew," he stated.

"Okay," she dismissed his introduction, "Boone. God…I missed you." She said.

The boy looked between the two of them. He could have been invisible for all the notice they were paying to anything other than themselves.

"You left me." He accused.

"We agreed that it was the right thing to do." She replied.

"We agreed, but that didn't mean that I wanted you to. I understood your reasons, what your staying would do to us, but that didn't mean that I actually wanted you to go, that I was alright with it." He frowned, squeezing his brows together, willing the tears not to come.

"I…I'm back now, will…will you let me stay?" she asked tentatively.

"For how long?" he wanted to know.

"I'd like to stay for good…I mean, permanently." She knew that saying "for good" might mean something entirely different.

"Shan, I don't know if I can." He drew a deep shuddering breath.

"Please?" her face twisted as the tears threatened to start

"I'm not that strong any more. I don't think that I can. You broke me the last time, I can't do it again. I can't have you here if you're just going to fuck me over again." He closed his eyes, willing her to understand how hard this was for him.

"I won't. Please Boone. It took a lot for me to come here. I'm ready now. I'm sure I am," she pleaded with him.

"Shan, I want you so much, but I can't do it again." He shook his head. "You don't know what it was like for me when you left." Andrew stood on the grass, listening to the horrible pain that they were disclosing.

"I wasn't prepared for the domesticity of it all, settling down." She said with a hitch in her breath. "I thought I was, but I wasn't. What I did to you on that last night, it was just wrong, but….it was me."

They'd been making love, and suddenly in the middle of it, she'd slipped her leg behind his and flipped him on his back. Then she'd sneered in satisfaction and had her way with him, in spite of his protests.

"You almost raped me that night," he admitted, with shame. "I pleaded with you to stop, but you didn't."

"I'm sorry, dear god Boone, I'm so sorry," it was six years ago, but to them, it was only yesterday.

"Shan," he couldn't finish.

"I've been a lot of places," she changed the subject, seizing on an opportunity.

"Yeah, I guess you have." He answered, vaguely.

The sight of him had her mesmerized, she couldn't think of what she wanted to say next. "But, where ever I was, I always thought of you."

"That's certainly kept me warm at night, your thoughts of me." He hated her at that moment.

"Boone, please…I…I…just want to be here, please. I know it's a lot to ask, it's not fair to you, but I want to come home. Please?" She begged him.

"Not a word to me, for six years, not a single fucking word, and now you want me to just accept that you're back, and that you'll stay, and that you won't tear my heart out again. What the fuck, Shannon?" Andrew looked at his father. Boone was usually so passive, so broken; Andrew was surprised by the strength in his tone.

"You knew I had to leave, you knew I would have torn us apart, all of us, our family, not just you and me, but all of us." After she'd made him come, against his wishes, while they'd made love, he'd left, ending up at Hugo's place. She'd followed him there the next day, and somehow they'd both ended up at Jack's. Jack had wanted them to talk, trying to dissuade them from approaching a therapist, knowing that what they said, while maybe helping _them_ though this particular crisis; would end up sounding crazy, and maybe destroying all of them, all of the survivors, in the end. He hadn't understood when, after they'd silently communed with each other, she'd grabbed her keys and abruptly left. When he asked Boone what had happened, what they'd said, all Boone had been able to convey was that she was going, and that she'd made him agree to it.

He started to cry, "Shan, dear Christ, what could I have possibly done differently? Jesus, it's like it was yesterday. I needed you so much, but I knew you felt you had to go, and I hated it, I hated you." He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to stop the tears; he hated to appear so vulnerable; he knew how pathetic he seemed at times.

She walked across the grass towards him at that, and slipped her arms around him. He flinched away at her touch. "Why did I have to be strong? Why did I have to let you go? Why was it all about you? Why? Shannon, why?" he pulled away from her.

"Because you loved me, and you still do," she answered quietly. "And because I still love you, and…I never stopped."

"No, no, you never loved me, I was just someone you could play with, a life sized Ken doll, that you could dress up and manipulate." He knew it wasn't true; he was just trying to hurt her. Though, however hard he tried to hurt her, it would never even come close to what she'd done to him.

"God, I'm so sorry," she tried again to pull him into her arms, this time he let himself fall into her embrace, his head dropped to her shoulder and he gave into the sobs that had been threatening. He cried like a child against her. Andrew watched them in silence, understanding the incredible emotional impact this was having on both of them.

He regained his composure after a few minutes and pulled himself upright. "So," he laughed derisively, "you want to stay?"

She mutely nodded her head yes.

"How did you get here?" He wanted to buy himself some time to think.

"I rented a car at the airport," she provided.

"I could have picked you up, that is, if you'd even had the decency to call me," he snorted.

"I needed the drive, the time, to work up my courage," Shannon hung her head at the last words.

"Six years wasn't enough time for you to bring yourself to face me, you needed an extra couple of hours?" he was clenching his jaw, trying to remain calm.

He looked at their son, "Andrew, can you please get Shannon's bag from her car and take it upstairs?" He knew he was being a complete fool for letting her do this to him again, but he couldn't stop himself.

"Sure, Boone," he turned and left the yard.

"Boone…" she echoed. She knitted her brows together, frowning. "He calls you Boone?"

"It's my name," he shrugged, "I try, but I don't think I'm much of a dad…." He looked ashamed.

He didn't know it, couldn't accept that he was successful at anything, she'd broken him so badly, but Andrew thought he was an excellent father. He considered himself incredibly lucky that Boone was his dad. Andrew called him by his first name simply because of the mental bond they shared. In Boone's head he was simply Boone, he didn't think of himself any other way, so Andrew didn't either.

"At least he has some degree of respect for me. At least I'm not a total loser _to him,_" he threw the last in her face.

"Dear god, Boone, I'm so sorry," she repeated. "I never left because I thought you were a loser, I left because of _me,_ because suddenly _I _was the loser. Although, we both lost that day," she looked at him suddenly, intently, "didn't we?"

He didn't answer; Andrew was coming back in through the gate with Shannon's luggage. He had a backpack slung over one shoulder and a medium sized bag on wheels trailing behind him. "Shan," he said, unconsciously mimicking Boone's form of addressing her, "is this everything?" Andrew asked her.

She nodded and turned back to Boone, "I travel light these days," she laughed briefly, "Kind of different from before Sydney. Suddenly stuff is so much less important." She thought back to the vast amount of luggage he'd checked for her before that flight. Luggage that he'd miraculously found for her after the crash, though his one and only small bag had gone forever missing.

He watched as Andrew pulled the suitcase up the back stairs and went in the house. "He's a great kid, I'm really lucky."

"He seems nice," she answered lamely.

"Yeah, like you'd know," he kept flip flopping from wanting her there and hating the very sight of her. It reminded him of his adolescence and teen years, how he'd both loved her _and _hated her through to his early twenties, until three months after the crash.

He looked at her now_, really looked_, at her longer hair, her thinner face, her lips, and how much he wanted to kiss them. He moved his head towards her, slowly, looking in her eyes, at her mouth and back again, before squeezing his eyes shut and claiming her mouth with his own.

That was the turning point, there was no going back after that, she had her hands in his hair, he slid his between them, brushing his palms against her breasts. He was ready to tear her clothes off, and fuck her in the back yard, as they'd done so many times before she'd left. Andrew watched them from his bedroom window, hoping, praying, that she wasn't going to end up killing his father. He turned from the window, and sat on his bed, thinking.

He heard them coming up the back stairs; heard Boone's bedroom door shut, heard the moans and cries that came from behind the closed door, and prayed for his father's sanity.


	2. The Warning

After leading her up from the back yard, he closed the bedroom door behind them. He noticed that Andrew had put her bags on the chest at the foot of his bed. Their bed, now again, he amended.

They undressed each other slowly, she could feel his hands shaking as he undid the buttons on her shirt. She grasped them in hers and stilled them against her chest. When she let them go, they were surer as they removed the rest of her clothes. When they stood naked on the carpet, they ghosted their hands over one another, reacquainting themselves with each other. As they touched the places that each of them knew so well, they groaned and cried out in pleasure, not attempting to hide the euphoria of being together again.

Moving to the bed, Boone reached down and threw the covers back, pushing her down against the white cotton of the sheets. Even caught up in the intensity of the moment, he still felt the fear that the memory of the last time they'd made love held for him. "Shhhh, it's alright," she caught the thought he had in his head, and wanted to banish his concern. It had been so long, she'd forgotten what it was like to be able to be right inside his thoughts. "I'm here _for you._ Please make love to me, Boone."

He slid himself on to her, and moved gently against her, fighting to retain control of himself. It had been too long, and he didn't want to reveal to her that he hadn't had sex since that night six years ago; knowing full well that she'd undoubtedly had numerous partners. When he came, it was violent and unrestrained, she felt him shaking even after it was over. She gently stroked her fingers up and down his spine, barely touching his skin, willing him to relax. She felt his muscles unknot as his body pressed harder against her. She heard his breathing slow, and was surprised when she realized that he'd fallen asleep. She considered sliding him off, but he weighed so little against her, that, without disturbing him, she reached for the blankets and drew them over themselves, crossing her arms over his back, and adjusting herself to the weight of him on her chest.

She awoke some time later. In his sleep he'd rolled over onto his back and she now lay in her accustomed position, pressed up against his left side, her head on his shoulder. She'd never once slept like that with any other man, insisting instead on no physical contact whatsoever, during sleep. It was an anomaly she'd never considered before that moment. She felt a presence in her mind, knowing immediately it wasn't Boone, and wondered who had woken her up. She realized that there was light in the room coming from the hall. Knowing he'd closed the bedroom door when they'd come upstairs, she raised her head from his shoulder and looked toward the foot of the bed. Andrew was standing there looking at the two of them.

"What?" she asked frowning, sitting up.

He raised his finger to his lips and nodded his head at his still sleeping father. 'Quiet, you'll wake Boone.' He thought at her.

'Jesus, I forgot you could do this too.' She was disturbed by the fact that he'd come in their room the way he had. She checked to be sure the blankets were pulled up to cover herself.

'It's pretty obvious that you got him to agree to let you stay,' he observed.

'Yeah, it is,' she acknowledged. She realized the absurdity of having this conversation with their son, while she lay in bed beside Boone, having just had sex with him.

'You hurt him pretty bad when you left,' he laughed silently at how that minimalized the destruction she'd left in her wake.

'I hurt myself too,' she wanted him to know it hadn't been easy for her either.

'If you hurt him again, if you make him cry, if you make him feel the slightest bit guilty, sad, or despairing, you'll live to regret that day. Know that. Know that I'll make you regret you ever came back. I'm _your_ son too, and I'm a vindictive brat, guess I just come by it naturally.' He made his warning very, very clear to her.

Her eyes widened in surprise, both at the intent of what he'd said, and the words. 'You sure you're only eight?' She sidestepped the implied threat.

'Nine next week,' he reminded her of his birthday. June 21st was only a week away. 'I've lived my life mostly in his head, I grew up pretty quick.'

'Yeah, I guess you did.' She smiled at him sadly. 'I'll be careful with him, I promise.'

'He's not like us; he's not as strong. And what you did to him…' he shook his head. 'I love him…and I won't see him hurt.'

'I love him too…but I can't promise that I won't hurt him. Just know that if I do, it won't be intentional. I'm not going to leave him again, that I _can_ promise you.' She felt fierce pride at how protective he was of Boone.

'Okay, truce then…till I get to know you better.' He pursed his lips and nodded at her in resignation.

'Truce,' she agreed.

'Night then, Shan,' he turned to go.

'Night, Andrew,' she lay back down.

The next time she woke it was the middle of the night. She could feel that Boone was already awake. "You hungry?" he asked, sliding his hand over her arm.

"I could eat." She allowed.

"Okay," he moved to get out of bed.

They padded quietly down the back stairs to the kitchen, not wanting to wake Andrew. Boone felt guilty that he hadn't gotten dinner ready for his son, but smiled when he saw the note on the kitchen table. "Boone: I cheated and had a peanut butter sandwich, so much for you forcing fish down my throat at every meal! A." Laughing, he showed the note to Shannon.

"It must be an inside joke, I don't get it," she handed the paper back to him.

"We eat a lot of fish. The poor kid, I think he believes that I think he's a guppy or something." He crumpled the paper and threw it in the garbage. "What do you want?"

She shrugged, "Anything's fine."

"Do you _think_ you could give me some direction here?" he was surprised that he was starting to recover a bit of his snarkiness.

"French toast, but the way you make it, with the orange juice and the cinnamon." Yeah, she thought, she hadn't had his French toast in years, and she suddenly had a craving for it.

He moved around the kitchen preparing what she'd requested. Finishing, he put the plate in front of her. "Aren't you having anything?" she asked.

"Uh, I don't eat much." he hung his head, as if ashamed of something.

"You're too thin." She tipped her head, suddenly concerned. "What's going on here Boone?"

"I, uh, I had a bout with an eating disorder. I'm okay now, but I still just don't eat that much." He still couldn't meet her gaze.

"Tell me," she demanded, knowing there was more that he was leaving out.

"After you left," he started tentatively, taking a breath he continued, "I fell apart. I couldn't function. They had me on a suicide watch for a while. If it weren't for Andrew I wouldn't be here for you to come back to. He was the only reason I tried to stay with it. Even after they let me come home, I couldn't function normally for months. When I said you had no idea how your leaving affected me, I meant it. It didn't help that my bitch of a mother kept throwing it in my face."

"Jesus, Boone, you're right, I had no idea." She got up and got another plate from the cupboard, she slipped the second piece of French toast onto it. "Eat. Please?" She looked at him, she'd known that he'd had suicidal tendencies in the past; he'd made that clear. She didn't pursue it any further, knowing they'd have another opportunity to discuss it.

He picked at the food. Suddenly his shoulders started to shake, he dropped the fork on the plate and covered his face with his hands. "What am I doing? God, I'm an idiot. Why am I doing this to myself again?"

She was out of the chair in an instant, moving to stand behind him, rubbing his shoulder and stroking his hair. "Shhh, don't. I'm not going anywhere, please believe me."

A movement on the stairs caught her eye. Andrew was standing on the bottom step, watching them. He shot her a look of warning.

Crossing the room to his father, he asked, "Boone? Are you okay?" He waited intently for a response.

Boone nodded; he dropped his hands from his face and gave Andrew a weak smile. "Yeah, bud, I'm fine. It's just a lot to deal with all at once. What're you doing up?"

"I felt that you were upset, I wanted to make sure you were okay." He looked meaningfully at Shannon, stressing the last word.

Boone frowned slightly at the look they exchanged, wondering if something had gone on between the two of them while he slept. "I'm fine," he repeated. "Go back to bed."

Giving Shannon one final glance, he nodded, turned and went back upstairs.

"He's very protective of you," she commented.

"Yes, yes he is. Unfortunately I've given him cause for concern in the past. Poor kid," he sighed. "Come on," he rose, "let's go back to bed. It's late, I'm tired."


	3. Starting Over

Back upstairs she followed him into the bedroom, closing the door. He held his hand out for his t-shirt as she pulled it off over her head, putting it on the chair by the bed and adding his jeans when he took them off. She was already naked and in the bed when he slid between the sheets.

"So, just how tired are you, really?" she slid her hand over his chest, feeling the pattern of faint scars that were a reminder of the incident that almost claimed his life.

"I guess I'm not really all that tired," he smiled down at her.

She moved to slide onto him. "No, please Shan, don't." He closed his eyes, willing the images from six years ago to go away. Suddenly he felt threatened by her.

"Boone, I'm not going to do that again, you have to know that!" she couldn't believe that he still didn't trust her.

"I just need some time. Jesus I'm pathetic." He shook his head at his stupidity.

"Make love to me then, however you want, you lead, please?" she tried to reassure him.

"Okay," he kissed the top of her head and pulled her closer to him. He moved his hands over her, eventually sliding on top of her. He was still the best sex she'd ever had. He came more gently this time, shuddering against her. He heard her moan his name seconds later.

He suddenly wondered, since she left, how many men had heard the same thing, the sound of her voice speaking their name as she orgasmed.

He slid off of her and got out of the bed moving to the window, he wrapped his arms around himself and stared down at the asphalt. "So, Shan, how many men have you had since you left? How many have heard you moan their name while you came?" He didn't know why it mattered to him.

He was standing in exactly the same place he'd stood six years before, when this had all started. She was disturbed by the repetition of it.

"Maybe you should be asking me how many men have heard me call _your_ name." she responded, moving to stand beside him.

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" he snorted.

"No…of course not, it was a bad joke, I'm sorry." She reached a hand out to touch his shoulder.

"So, how many?" He flinched away from her touch, but wasn't going to leave this alone.

"Boone, don't, it won't change anything. I'm here with _you_ now, what happened while I was away doesn't matter." She tried to reason with him.

"I want to know. How many men have had sex with _my wife_?" He turned away from the window. "How many?" He asked forcefully, insistently. He knew it was pointless; he didn't even care, really. He suddenly realized that it was all just a power play on his part.

She hung her head and shook it, shrugging. "I don't know…maybe six."

He closed his eyes, picturing her with another man. It was easy to do. He'd seen her with so many different boyfriends as they'd been growing up. Once, accidentally, he'd actually walked in on her having sex with one of them, staring at them in shock for a minute before silently leaving the room before they knew he was there. He'd run to his bedroom and sat shaking on the bed trying to get the image out of his head, shame at how he felt about her making it almost impossible.

"Does it change anything, knowing that?" she asked.

"No, I'm an idiot, I don't know why I needed to know," he led her back to the bed.

Snuggling up against him again, she raised her head, "So how about you?"

"What?" he closed his eyes, knowing what her reaction would be when she heard his answer.

"Since I left, how many women have sex with my incredibly gorgeous brother?" she threw in the last word just to try to lighten the mood.

He drew a deep breath before he told her the truth, "None."

"What!" she pulled away from him and sat on the bed. "Are you insane?" Shit, she thought, regretting her choice of words, given what he'd revealed downstairs.

"I just couldn't. Trying to get to know someone again, trying to connect, it all seemed like too much work. And there was the whole island thing, and the crash, and the stupid ESP thing, _and_ the fact that I was married to my sister. Fuck! I _did _date though, but no one has shared my bed, not since we married, except for you." He felt like such a loser.

"God, Boone, I'm sorry, I didn't intend to make you feel bad. I just thought, that…given the way you look…you would have had….opportunities." She tried to put it delicately.

"Yeah, I did, but nothing ever came of them. Like I said, I just couldn't. Don't worry though, that you did. I always expected that you would. It's just you. And I don't judge you for it. I guess it's just because of the history that we have." He realized, surprised, that he didn't feel jealous at all, it seemed like such a waste of time.

She lay back down against him. "Jesus, we're strange."

"Yeah, we're pretty screwed up." God, how good she felt pressed up against him.

"Night, honey," She murmured against his shoulder.

"Yeah, night," he stroked the smoothness of her body as he fell asleep.

He felt the heat of the sun on his face. That didn't seem right…he frowned, still groggy from sleep. As the reason for his confusion sunk in, he jolted upright, dislodging Shannon's head from his shoulder. Holy shit, he thought, what the hell time was it? He realized that the sun was streaming in the bedroom window. He glanced at the clock on the bedside table, the numbers 10:30 flashed back at him. He jumped out of the bed.

"Boone? What're you doing, where's the fire?" A suddenly wide-awake Shannon was looking at him quizzically, wondering why he was in such a panic.

"I slept in, I…" he stopped when he saw the note taped to the foot of the bed. 'Boone: Stop freaking out!' the first line read. He laughed, Andrew knew him too well. 'I let Joan in, the store's open. I took money from your wallet for lunch, aaand I took the bus to school. Dude; do NOT make me take it back home, that's just too much. Be SURE to pick me up at 4! A.' He pulled the note off the footboard and handed it to Shannon.

"Dude?" she laughed. "I guess you see Hurley a lot."

"Sometimes," he slid back between the sheets, the note having eliminated the need to rush. He pulled her against him, sighing. "God, I couldn't tell you the last time I took a day off."

"And I couldn't tell you the last time I worked," she laughed. "We're an odd pair aren't we?"

"_That's_ putting it mildly. Come on let's shower, I don't want to waste the whole day," he got back out of the bed; suddenly feeling motivated to do something.

In the bathroom she immediately noted the changes he'd made, the room was twice the size it had been when she'd left. A huge shower stall dominated one corner. "You've made a lot of changes. I've been meaning to ask, what happened to Tom and Heather?"

"April relocated to Palm Springs, so they moved there to be near their grandchildren. It was about three years ago." He reached in the shower and turned the water on. "Andrew's got their old room now, and with the renovations I gave him an ensuite."

It started out as just a shower, but inevitably turned into more. She pulled his head towards her, as he pushed her up against the tiles.

After dressing they headed downstairs.

He pulled two mugs out of the cupboard and set the kettle on the stove.

"Tea?" he asked. "I've got some really good green tea from Sun."

"No, coffee," she replied.

"I don't have any back here, but there'll be some out front." He grabbed one of the mugs and headed for the store. "Come on, you can meet Joan."

She was just finishing with a customer, and smiled as she acknowledged Boone," Hey, Andrew said that your…" she stopped when she saw the woman behind him.

He laughed at what he knew she was going to say, "Yeah, my wife came back. This is Shannon."

"Hi, Shannon Rutherford, sorry to shock everyone like this." She smiled at the girl.

"No, no shock at all," she lied quickly, "Nice to meet you."

He poured Shannon's coffee and handed her the mug, "You okay if we take off for the rest of the day?"

"Sure, yes, of course." Joan, wondered why he'd think she wouldn't be.

Back in the kitchen, Shannon asked him, "You sound like you've got something planned. What?"

"You remember how to ride?" he poured the boiling water over the tea leaves in his mug.

"My bike! You still have my motorcycle? Of course, I remember!" She was ecstatic.

They spent the rest of the day out on the motorcycles, ending up at Andrew's school just before 4.

He came out of the school, and stopped suddenly, noticing them parked at the curb. Boone was sitting back, sideways against his bike, she was leaning forward, her hands on his thighs. They were talking, he was laughing at something she'd said. "Your dad has a new girlfriend?" the boy beside him asked.

"No, that's my mom." He was amazed at the sudden change in Boone. He rarely ever laughed at anything.

He walked towards them, just thankful he wasn't going to have to take the bus again, God how he hated it. "Boone?" he spoke as he neared hem.

Shannon pulled away from Boone, guiltily, as she heard his voice.

"Hey, I got your note." He laughed at his son. "No bus ride for you, sorry, I know how you like to ride with the unwashed masses."

"Yeah, I just love that." He answered, sarcastically. "Shan," he acknowledged her presence.

"Hi," she had no idea how to deal with him.

"I guess I'm going to have to answer to you," he said.

"What?" she had no idea what he was talking about.

He reached in his backpack and drew out a ragged copy of Watership Down. "We're studying this now, so I brought my copy." He pulled back the cover and showed her what she'd written there so many years ago. "You going to beat me up for touching it?"

"No, I don't suppose I am." She'd forgotten all about the book. She reached forward and ruffled his hair. It was the first time she'd touched him since she got back. They both felt the shock of the connection immediately. She snatched her hand away quickly as they stared at one another.

"Shan?" Boone had felt it too.

"I think we need to go home," was all she said.

"Yeah, I think we do." Andrew replied, as Boone held his helmet out to him.


	4. Andrew

Back home, they parked the bikes in the garage and Andrew went ahead to the house. When they were alone she put her hand out to stop him as he started to follow Andrew, "Boone?"

"What?" he turned to her.

"What I felt when I touched him, do you feel it too?" she questioned.

"Yeah, I do. It's quite a jolt isn't it? I should have warned you. I'm just used to it. Sorry for not giving you the heads up." He apologized.

"What is it?" she was pretty sure she knew, but wanted to hear his take on it.

"It's the connection between us. It wasn't very strong when you left. I mean, I know that you could sense his thoughts, but he was barely three, they weren't very coherent. It's gotten stronger as he's gotten older. Stupid Craphole Island," he laughed. "Fucking ESP, what kind of nonsense is that?" he shook his head.

"Yeah, it's pretty strange." She agreed, knowing she wouldn't give up the ability to share his thoughts for anything. She closed her eyes briefly and ghosted her mind over his, smiling.

"There's something else you should know." He commented, relishing the feel of her in his head.

"Hmmm?" she opened her eyes and looked at him.

"He can pick up on other people." He informed her.

"What!" She stared at him in shock.

"Yeah, he can read anyone he wants to. I talked to Jack about it. He thinks it's because his entire gestation period was spent on the island. It had lots of time to influence the unformed mind he had. You know what it did to Aaron, and he was just a month from birth by the time we crashed." He reminded her.

"Jesus, what's that been like for you?" she couldn't imagine.

"It's been kind of rough. As if I didn't have enough problems of my own, I've had to deal with this too. That's why he seems so much older than he is. He's read every book I've read since you left, just by being in my head. He drives Sabrina crazy when we go to see her, 'cause he makes these complete non sequitur comments, picking up on things she's thinking about. _That_ part of it's funny though, I must say, seeing her being put off balance by an eight year old. The hardest part's been since he started school. Trying to be sure he gets through it on his own, without cheating. I mean, during a test, he could so easily pick all the answers out of the teachers' head. But he's pretty smart, even without all that." He was so proud of his son, their son, he quickly amended.

"Wow, I'm sure parenting 101 never covered any of this," she laughed, sorry that she'd left him to deal with it on his own.

"Yeah, I'm sure it's pretty unique." He reached out to tangle his fingers in her hair, "I still can't believe you're back." He closed his eyes briefly, remembering when she'd left.

She realized immediately what he was doing, "Boone, stop; don't ruin the day, please?"

"I…I think you need to know. I'm not proud of it, believe me. You just meant so much to me, you still do, of course. When they say that someone completes them I think that's what you do for me. When you left me, it was like part of me was gone." He shook his head. "I've loved you since I was a child, since we both were children. God, it was so wrong, but I couldn't help myself."

When she'd left, it hadn't taken long for Tom and Heather to become seriously worried about him. He quickly lost complete interest in anything. He'd sit quietly in his bedroom, staring at her side of the bed and crying. He'd pick through her clothes, the ones she'd left, folding them and putting them away neatly, for hours. The final straw had been when Heather had found him in the bathroom, well past midnight, with a razor blade in his hand, his trembling fingers trying to press it against his wrist.

Sabrina had been furious. She'd always thought he was an idiot for marrying her step-daughter in the first place. She resented the media attention she'd had to deal with after he'd voluntarily committed himself, yet another celebrity offspring in rehab, or therapy, in his case. Jack had come to see him frequently, as had Sun and Hurley. He'd poured his heart out to Claire, sobbing on her shoulder as Charlie stroked his wife's arm. The vomiting had started soon after he'd taken up residence, afterwards he'd stare blankly into space, thinking about the release that death would bring him. The death he'd already cheated once. Jack had warned Tom and Heather against bringing Andrew to visit, knowing the blackness of Boone's thoughts would adversely affect the toddler. It had been hard, trying to talk to the therapist without revealing too much. If he'd talked about the island, about what had gone on there, he was afraid that the voluntary part of the commitment status would be changed. So he'd mostly talked about his childhood, and how loving his sister had made him feel, how her leaving had left him wanting the solace of nothingness he was sure death would bring. When he'd come home, finally, Sun had come to stay with him for a while, Jin understanding that right then Boone needed her more than he did.

Standing in the garage, explaining all this to her now, made him realize that, if she ever left him again, he didn't have the strength not to follow through on his death wish.

"Boone, honey, I won't leave you again, please know that." She held him in her arms, stroking his hair, regretting the incredible pain she'd caused him. Sometimes it seemed like their whole lives were nothing but a roadmap of pain and sadness. She swore she'd do her best to make up for that. "Come on hon. Let's go up to the house before Andrew starts getting worried about us." He lifted his head from her shoulder. She smiled at him, "Okay?"

He nodded sadly. "Yeah, I guess." He wiped his eyes, feeling like such a failure. .

"No, baby, you're not a failure." She picked up on his thought immediately. "God, I wish I'd been here for you. I had no idea what my leaving would do to you. I'm so sorry! You have to believe that!"

"It's okay, Shan, don't worry, I'm okay with it now. Come on, I don't want him to get concerned." He led her from the garage.

In the house, Andrew was in the kitchen, when they entered he saw Boone's heightened colour and looked at her suspiciously. "Is there something here that I'm missing," Boone asked, noting again the strange look they exchanged. He could easily have read either one of them, but respected their privacy enough not to invade their thoughts.

"Andrew's afraid that I'm going to hurt you again." Shannon explained.

He shot a look at his son. "Bud, don't worry, Shan's not going anywhere. Right, sis?" He looked at her.

"Yeah, of course." She reassured him.

"I don't trust her." He said.

"Andy, she's your mom." He protested.

"She's never been a mom to me, just like she's hardly ever been a wife to you! She's your sister, Boone! She's always been changeable, you _know_ that!" He didn't know how to deal with this. Jesus he was only eight, he was just terrified that she'd end up killing Boone somehow. He couldn't overcome his fear at the thought of losing his father. It was something he'd been through years before, but had thought was far behind him.

"Andrew Carlyle, you will _not_ speak about your mother that way." Boone was suddenly furious with him. He knew he was acting badly. He was shaking at the emotions he was experiencing. He _never_ fought with his son.

"Boone, stop, let me," Shannon intervened. She held her hand out for the boy, "Come on, I think it's past time you and I had a talk."

He looked at her hand suspiciously, eventually coming forward to take it. "We'll be outside for a bit," she didn't flinch this time as the jolt of connection went through her. "Have something good ready for dinner when we get back." She smiled at him. 'I love you,' she thought quickly at him.

'Love you too, Shan,' he watched them go out the back door.

"So…how's it gonna be?" she asked as they settled themselves in the backyard.

"You tell me." He replied.

"You know I've already fought Sabrina for the rights to him, and won. I think she was much more of an opponent that you are." She couldn't believe the absurdity of talking about this with a child.

"I'm no child, at least no child you've ever had to deal with." He picked up on her thought. "Don't forget that I'm your son too, and I've got all of your self centred bitchiness. As gentle as I can seem, given Boone's influence, I'm my mother's son too."

She was shocked at how forthright he was. "You certainly are my son, no doubt about that. Has he…Boone, has he ever told you about…how…why…what I did to him before the crash?" She thought if she started at the beginning it might be easier.

"Yeah, he's told me. How could you have done that to him?" he looked at her in wonderment.

"I don't know. You've got to understand how screwed up we both were. He loved me so desperately, and I was in complete denial of his love, _and_ mine." She closed her eyes briefly and thought about Sydney, his hotel room, their love for each other. She felt the hot flush of it even across all the intervening years.

"Okay…" he cut her off. "I'm still a kid here, no sex…please!" he pleaded.

"Sorry," she shook her head, smiling at him. "This is going to take some getting used to."

"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock." He shot back.

"Andrew! Don't talk to me like that. Jeeze, you're not Sawyer!" she admonished him.

"No, I'm not James, that's for sure." He smiled remembering the last time the Southerner had been by the house.

"I've missed a lot, haven't I?" she questioned.

"You have no idea." He responded. "You made him laugh today," changing the subject; he remembered the scene at the school. "I guess it makes up for you making him cry last night."

"You think?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'd call it a wash." He looked at her quizzically. "Why's he so special? Why do we love him so much?"

"I couldn't say. He's been my brother since I was eight, and my husband for a long time. I don't know why I need him the way that I do." She rolled her memories of him around in her mind, trying to come up with an answer to his question. They sat in silence for a while, each lost in their memories of Boone.

He opened the back door, "Guys, supper!" he called.

"Coming." They both answered.


	5. Dinner

As they approached the back door, the aroma of what he'd prepared wafted out at them.

God it smelled good, she thought. "I just want to wash my hands, okay?" She said after entering the kitchen.

He glanced at her over his shoulder, still working on something on the stove. There was classical music coming quietly from the CD player on the counter. "Yeah, of course, Andrew can you help me over here?" he turned back to what he was doing.

The child approached him, "You really need to give her a chance, please, for me?" he said as the boy reached him. "Make an effort, try to connect, reach out to her, please?"

"I'll do my best, Boone." He answered.

When Shannon returned, they sat down at the kitchen table, bowls of Bouillabaisse in front of them. He'd pulled a loaf of homemade bread out of a drawer and set it on the table with a board and a knife, along with a salad. She smiled at him softly, thinking about how amazing he was, and the gourmet food he'd prepared so casually. She loved him so desperately, she wondered again how she could possibly have left, knowing full well what the answer to that was.

"You guys work things out?" he wondered. Knowing there was something hidden between them.

"Yeah, I think we're okay now." She responded, looking at Andrew for confirmation.

"It's okay Boone," he shrugged.

She glanced at the clock, it was barely six, she was glad they'd gone for a ride after picking Andrew up at school. "You guys always eat this early?" she questioned.

"Andrew's got homework," he provided.

"Yeah, I can't concentrate if I'm hungry, so on school nights we eat early. We're more civilized on weekends and holidays, though." He smiled at her.

"So, what kinds of things do you guys do when it's not a school night?" she attempted to open a conversation with him.

They sat around the table, talking as if it was the most natural thing in the world, as if she hadn't just shown up yesterday, after six years.

"So, you want to help me with my homework?" He asked her after a while, remembering Boone's request that he try to connect with her, "You any good at math?"

Boone choked on a piece of food at that. Andrew looked, concerned, towards his father, Shannon just glared at Boone, exasperated.

'I'm okay,' he thought at them both, reaching for his glass of water.

"Uh, I guess you can take it from his reaction that obviously that'd be a no," she shook her head and rolled her eyes.

There was a knock at the kitchen door, the inside one that led to the store, then it opened. A teenaged boy stood there, obviously one of the stores' after school part timers, a piece of paper in his hand. "Boone?"

"Yeah, Terry…" he started.

"Terry," Shannon interrupted. "You want to _wait_ 'til we say come in before you just barge into our home?" She was guessing that Boone probably had an open door policy for his staff, but she was going to put a stop to it right now.

The boy looked suitably chastised, "Sorry." Boone shook his head, she never changed.

"It's okay, you're in here _now_. What did you want?" she asked, not bothering to introduce herself.

"Boone, Joan left you a note." He held out the paper in his hand, walking over to hand it to him.

"Thanks. This, as I'm sure you've guessed, is Shannon, my _charming_ wife." The kid just smiled at her nervously, nodded his head; then made a quick exit.

"Way to frighten the staff, sis," he snorted a small laugh. "Oh, no," he groaned reading what Joan had written.

"What?" Andrew asked.

He read the note out loud: "Mr. Perkins was in for some cinnamon buns and wasn't pleased you hadn't made any. Guess who's delivering them to his house tomorrow morning on the way to drop his kid off at school? BTW, your first guess doesn't count. Joan."

"Guess I know what you're back to doing this evening." Andrew laughed.

She smiled, remembering how he'd get things prepped the night before so they'd be freshly baked in the morning.

After dinner, Andrew headed upstairs to his room, school work waiting for him, while the other two found themselves in the commercial kitchen area Boone had added to the house in her absence. She watched while he moved efficiently around the space, measuring flour and other ingredients. They chatted easily while she sat on a stool and watched him work. "I can't believe he asked _me_ for help with his math homework." She commented at one point, watching for his reaction. She had a feeling she knew _exactly_ why Andrew had asked.

"He doesn't really need the help, but I know you already figured that out. He was just doing it because I asked him to try to connect with you. I just didn't expect it'd be with something so _patently absurd_." He waited for the fallout to his last two words, he loved sparring with her.

"Patently absurd!" she echoed, indignantly.

"Well, you _barely_ made it through high school, and…" he started.

"Don't you even go there, shithead, you know very well that I could have done well in school. I just didn't want to. Who the hell cares what the rainfall in the Serengeti is, or the value of pi!"

"The Serengeti? It's like, 20 to 40 inches, and pi is 3.14159." he answered smugly. He pulled the dough out of the mixer.

"You are _such_ an asshat, Boone. Tell me exactly what _that_ information's going to get you?" she demanded.

"A rise…out of you." He smirked at her.

She couldn't believe she'd fallen for it so easily. She laughed softly, and shook her head at her stupidity. "Andrew's studying Watership Down in school?" she changed the subject, wanting to put her humiliation behind her. "It seems a little advanced for, what, grade 3 or 4?"

"He's actually in grade 6 Advanced English. They wanted to fast track him, and I agreed. He was so bored in his regular grade, that I let them skip him a few times. They actually wanted to do it again, but I said no. He's already so very different from his classmates, though they don't know the half of it, what with his strange parentage, and my problems, and the stupid ESP, and the crash and everything else, I didn't want his age to add to it. I might let them do it again in a couple of years, I'll have to see."

"We," she reminded him.

"Sorry, of course, _we'll_ have to see." He amended. "I thought about enrolling him a private school, one that'd better cater to his needs, but the only ones I could find that I thought were suitable were so far away that it would have meant I'd have to send him away. I couldn't see myself doing that, not having him here, he was all I had. I know it's selfish." He hung his head, a bit ashamed.

"Boone, the _last_ thing you are is selfish. You were all he had too. It would have been just as hard for him to leave you. But why didn't you just move?" she thought it seemed like a perfectly sound alternative.

"And what if you came back, like you've done? Where was the first place you came? I'm sure you just got off the plane, rented a car and drove directly here, didn't you?" he explained his reason for staying. "What if you'd arrived and we were gone?"

"I would have called our lawyer to find out where you were." She replied.

"Would you? Or would it have given you second thoughts, like maybe because we were gone, it was a sign that meant we weren't supposed to be together. I know it sounds stupid, like some mystical island crap, but I was so afraid to make any changes that might chance our never connecting again, in the event that you decided to return." He tried to legitimize his decision. "Anyway," he shook his head, dismissing it, "it doesn't matter, he's doing really well, it's a small school and they're giving him lots of special attention."

"I can't believe he's that smart. I know you were no slouch academically, but I just didn't care." She thought back to his university degree, obtained a couple of years sooner than normal, and her almost botched attempt at finishing high school.

"Just because you didn't care, doesn't mean you're not intelligent. I think you've proven that." He finished rolling out the dough and started sprinkling spices over it.

"Thanks, I think," she smiled at him.

"Hey guys," Andrew came in through the door. He'd finished his homework and was going to read a while before going to bed, he'd just come down to say goodnight. Boone gave him a hug, and kissed the top of his head. He moved awkwardly to Shannon. She was just as uncomfortable as he was; both so unused to the situation. She smiled sadly and leaned down and kissed his cheek, he looked up at her, startled. They locked eyes for an instant, then he smiled as well. "Night Shan." He gave her a quick peck.

Boone watched the whole exchange intently, smiling at Andrew's retreating back as he left for bed. He hid his expression and returned to what he was doing; not wanting to make her any more uncomfortable than she already was by making a big thing of it.

"You finished feeling smug yet, asshole?" She looked at him, knowing exactly what he was trying to hide.

When he was done and had put the finished product in the oven, setting the timer for the morning, he suggested they go out to the yard, and have a glass of wine. They sat quietly as night fell, just enjoying each other's company. There would be plenty of time to talk in the days, and years to come.

Upstairs in the bedroom, after closing the door, he spoke "I have something for you." He crossed to the dresser. Opening the bottom drawer he reached under some t-shirts and pulled out a packet of papers, holding them out to her.

They were letters, his return address in the upper left corner, her name and various addresses written, carefully, in his neat, precise handwriting in the centre. She realized, startled, that she recognized the addresses as places she'd lived over the intervening years. She looked up at him. He'd known exactly where she was all that time, and had never tried to interfere or intrude, never tried to contact her. She felt the tears start immediately. "Christ Boone, Jesus…." It was all she could get out. She counted them slowly: eighteen.

"I wrote one on each of our birthdays, yours, mine, Andrews', and one on our anniversary. You left after he turned three; I was in no condition to write one on my birthday that year, so they start on our anniversary, the last one's dated a little over two months ago. I don't think I ever really intended to send them; they were more of a catharsis for me. I still got your addresses though, just in case. Our lawyer knew where you were. I knew you'd have to keep him informed of that. I paid our credit card bills, so I knew generally where you were, but he kept you supplied with cash. I told him to give you whatever you wanted. I got the addresses from him, don't blame him, you didn't ask that it be confidential."

She pulled off the elastic and started to open the oldest one, he put out his hand to stop her. "Don't," he said shaking his head. "I can't watch you read them, please."

"Okay, honey, I'll wait." She put them in the drawer of her nightstand. She reached her hand up to brush the hair off his forehead, before resting her palm, briefly, on his cheek. "Why _didn't_ you mail them?"

"For the same reason I never tried to contact you by phone. The decision to leave wasn't mine, it was yours, and I didn't want to make you feel like you had to come back sooner than you were ready, or," he paused, "even at all."

She shook her head, amazed at how selfless he was, "I…I don't know what to say. I guess," she shrugged, "thanks for that. I can't imagine what it cost you."

"My sanity for a while, then, I don't know…I guess I was just numb, until I got used to the emptiness." He reached out and unwittingly imitated her gesture, slipping his fingers through the hair on her forehead, then cupping her cheek, "I missed you so much." He pulled her against him, burying his face in her hair, breathing the wild, musky scent of her.

They were soon naked, and she was leading him to the bed.


	6. He Confesses

She reached down and laced her fingers in his hair, moving her hips against him, pulling him harder against her, 'Shan, I have to breathe,' he thought desperately. She relaxed her hold and focused on what he was doing. She felt the heat spreading though her, as she came she cried his name, as she always did. He continued to lie between her thighs, trying to get his bearings back as her orgasm resonated in his head. Eventually he pulled away from her and sat up against the footboard of the bed. He wiped his hand over his chin, and rolled his head on his shoulders, trying to work out the kinks.

Watching him, she laughed, "Too much for you?"

"No, it just gets uncomfortable after a bit." He smiled at her.

"God, I love it when you do it though," she closed her eyes and smiled at the memory.

"That's why I do it, I aim to please," he held his hand out for his pillow, when she tossed it to him he put it behind his back. "Slide down," he reached for one of her ankles.

She shrugged and scooted down the bed as he'd asked. He took her foot in his hand and pressed his thumbs against her instep, rubbing her foot, gently. "Jesus, could you be any more perfect?" she asked.

"What?" he questioned, surprised at her characterization of him. He knew he was _far_ from perfect. He'd simply decided on the spur of the moment to massage her feet.

"Christ, Boone, you feed me gourmet food, you give me amazing sex, and then you massage my feet? What the fuck are you, God's friggin' gift to humanity?" She laughed; resurrecting a nickname she'd given him years ago.

He laughed at that, "No, maybe just God's friggin' gift to Shannon."

"Yeah, that's it. God cares enough about me to send me my own gift!" she laughed back. Turning suddenly serious she asked, "Boone, when I was talking to Andrew, outside earlier, he said you told him about what I did to you before the crash. He asked me how I could have done it. What did you tell him exactly?" She waited nervously for his answer.

"Pretty much everything," he confessed, knowing she wouldn't be pleased at that.

She pulled her foot away from him and sat up, staring at him angrily. "Everything?" she asked in a dangerously quiet voice, he was suddenly surprised how much she reminded him of Sabrina at that moment.

"Shan, it's been six years. Over that amount of time, you can't possibly _not _think that most of the story would come out. You're his mother. He didn't think…we didn't _know_, if we'd ever see you again. Of course he wanted to know everything about you." He tried to make her see the sense of it.

She realized that he was right, as usual, of course. "No wonder he doesn't trust me, _you_ barely trust me," she said quietly. "God, if he knows everything, how is it he didn't end up in therapy the same as you did?"

"I don't know," he shook his head. "I guess he's just stronger than I am, and remember he didn't live it, he just heard about it second hand from me. And believe me; I tried to paint everything in as good a light as possible! You and I were both equally to blame, and I didn't want him to end up pitying me, and hating you."

"How in God's name did you explain the absurdity of it all?" Her anger gone, she lay back down against her pillow, extending her foot, waiting for him to resume his massage _and_ his story. He picked both up where he'd left off.

"It started with my mother. Every time we'd go to visit she'd ask if I'd heard from my sister, stressing the last word, like it was a curse." He paused for a bit recalling the memory. "Eventually he asked who my sister was. That's when it got complicated, Christ he was only five. How did I explain that you weren't _really_ my sister, but his mother, _and_ my wife, even though, in a way, you _were_ my sister," he shook his head again, "and that his grandmother was just a bitch? Yeah, that was easy." He laughed derisively. "But I managed somehow." He dropped her foot and held out his hand for the other, pausing briefly in his story.

She obediently lifted her other ankle for him and waited for him to continue. He sighed and began rubbing at her other foot. "Then he wanted to know why you left us. He tried to take all the guilt on himself. He'd say things like: if only he'd been better, you would have stayed. He cried and cried. That I cried too didn't help. There were things I just could tell him; things that I had to hide; things he _still _doesn't know, at least I'm pretty sure he doesn't. How the Christ could I have told him he was an accident. That what we did in Sydney should never, ever, have happened; that if we'd actually landed safely, he would never have even _been." _They'd faced the fact, years ago, that she would have gotten an abortion, without ever telling him of the existence of the baby, if the flight hadn't crashed.

"But you just told _me,_ and you've told me how sensitive his mind is, didn't he just pick up on it right now?" her eyes widened at the thought of Andrew knowing this most horrible of secrets.

Boone shook his head, "We have an agreement. He doesn't read me when I'm in here and I stay out of his head when he's in _his_ bedroom. Anyway," he shrugged, "we can still block each other if we want."

She breathed a sigh of relief at that. "So, what the hell did you tell him? God, Boone, how did you explain why I'd left," she was almost in tears at the thought of what she'd put him through.

"I don't know, I made it all up on the fly, I was so desperate to make him understand that it wasn't his fault, that it really wasn't anyone's fault, not even yours. I held out the hope to him that maybe you'd come back some day. It was all I could think of to say, but it seemed to work. He was okay with things for a while after that. But then, after a bit, he wanted to know about the crash, why we'd been in Sydney. God Shan, I was already trying to deal with his whole ESP thing, you don't understand, but he didn't _know_ he was different. And now I had to explain all that other shit too!" He dropped her foot and covered his face with his hands.

She was on her knees in an instant, pulling him against her. "I'm sorry I wasn't here, but I can't change the past. You seem to have dealt with everything okay."

He let himself rest against her shoulder for a few seconds before pulling away again to resume the tale. "Yeah, I didn't have much of a choice now, did I?"

"No, I guess not." She sat back.

"Anyway, I told him about how you'd gotten into a bad relationship, and how you'd called me to come get you. I didn't really get into the whole money con game thing, at least not 'till he was older, then I explained it. Jesus, Shan, I was walking on egg shells, I'd already told him we'd loved each other since we were kids, it was all just so fucking messy. Now I had to try to explain how you were in a relationship with another man. I mean, years before, he'd asked how my sister became his mother, my wife. I felt like I was juggling chain saws. Every small falsehood, I _won't_ say lie, led to another unmanageable thread I had to deal with, and I was already so screwed up myself! Fuck Shan, remember, after you left, I'd tried to kill myself, more than once!" He knew what he was saying sounded garbled and confused, but it _had_ been, as he'd tried to deal with what he thought Andrew could comprehend at the time, as he got older and his questions became more specific.

She didn't want him to think about that and so tried to divert him away from trying to say anything more about how he'd tried to explain their relationship. "So he wanted to know about the crash and the island?" She prompted.

"Yeah, at least with that I had help. I know you're going to laugh at this, but…I called Sawyer." He watched for her reaction as he told her.

"Sawyer," she said it slowly, doubtfully, as if she'd misheard him. She looked at him questioningly, waiting for confirmation. He nodded his head. She started laughing, as he'd known she would. "You, the guy he beat up, who always muttered 'asshole' under his breath whenever you were in the same room together, _you_ called _Sawyer_ for help?"

"Yeah, I know, seems crazy, but I had some solid reasoning behind it." He took a deep breath, "Even before you left, you knew Andrew had always liked him. I figured he'd tell everything in a very pragmatic, laidback way; that he'd be truthful, but that he'd spin it like it was a story. You know how much Sawyer likes stories. Funny," he mused as an aside, "I still can't believe what an avid reader he is, just doesn't seem the type." He smirked at that, then returned to his explanation. "And of course, he'd use the colourful words that only Sawyer can, downplaying everything in his own way. I thought if it came out in that Southern drawl of his, it wouldn't seem quite as terrifying as it all was. You know: 'The doc done this, Jackass…Freckles done that…I done shot myself a bear…frickin' Jungle ah Mystery.'" he did an almost perfect impression of James.

She laughed at him, till there were tears in her eyes and she was gasping for breath. Every time she tried to start to say something, she burst into laughter again. He sat there, watching her, with a big goofy grin on his face. "Oh, my God." She finally managed to get out.

"Glad my life's so amusing to you," he said with a laugh, understanding full well that she was laughing at his impersonation.

She managed to get herself under control. "You know if I close my eyes, I can almost imagine I'm in bed with Sawyer, instead of you."

"Oh, yeah, _that's_ an image I want in my head. You and that asshole," they both started laughing again.

They looked suddenly towards the door as they both heard the knocking.

"Guys?" they heard Andrew query.

Shannon quickly moved up the bed to slide under the blanket as Boone called out, "Hold on a sec."

When she was safely covered, he told their son to come in.

The door opened slowly, he stood there, his blonde hair mussed from sleep; he was rubbing at his eyes. "Do you think you could keep it down a little in here? I've got school tomorrow."

"Of course, bud, we're sorry." Boone apologized.

"'Kay then, night guys," he turned from the room and pulled the door closed behind him.

Boone scooted up the bed with his pillow, and slid under the covers. She'd already turned the light off on her side of the bed. He reached up for the switch on his side, then pulled her close against him. The room in darkness, he asked, "Uh, Shan?"

"You want your turn don't you?" she guessed.

"Well…" he said hopefully.

She moved to kiss him, then pushed back the blankets and slid slowly down his body.


	7. Andrew's Fun

He was sitting in front of the computer at his desk the next morning, a spreadsheet of the prior months' financials up on the screen, when she appeared at the doorway. He'd already packed a lunch for Andrew and gotten him his breakfast; the boy was in the kitchen eating.

"Hey," she smiled at him. "Thanks for letting me sleep in."

He turned his chair to the door, smiling warmly. "No problem, you're not used to my hours again yet, there was no point in waking you so early."

She moved to stand in front of him. He reached out with his hands to grasp her waist, pulling her onto his lap. She straddled him, lacing her fingers through his hair and kissing him, hungrily.

"Boone, I'm ready to go, and…" Andrew stood in the doorway and stopped when he saw them.

She jumped up, guiltily, "I, uhm, that is…"

"Hey, bud, so you're ready?" he seemed so casual about Andrew catching them in compromising circumstances, an occurrence that still made Shannon extremely uncomfortable. It struck her as highly contradictory. She'd always been the exhibitionist, and Boone conservative and shy. She supposed it was because he was used to living with the boy, while to her, it was a completely new, and somewhat bizarre experience, to which she was still trying to adapt.

"Yeah, dude, totally ready." He smiled in fun at his answer.

"Shan, can you take him, please?" he asked. "I'm so far behind, with taking yesterday off and all. My bike keys are on the board beside yours. And don't forget to drop off Mr. Perkins' cinnamon buns. They're in the bag on the counter." He reminded.

He'd had his bike set up for two, while hers was a still a single seater. "Sure, of course," she replied.

They grabbed their stuff and headed out to the garage, she backed Boone's bike out onto the driveway and Andrew got on behind her. After stopping at the customers' house they pulled up in front of the school.

She'd gotten off the bike and had her back to the entrance, so she didn't see the teacher approaching. "Mr. Carlyle?" the woman queried.

Andrew had tucked her ponytail down into her jacket during the ride, not wanting her hair flying in his face. She was almost exactly the same height as Boone, and dressed in her leathers the woman couldn't be blamed for not realizing that she wasn't the boys' father.

She turned, and removed her sunglasses. "No."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, the bike and all, I just assumed you were Andrews' dad." The woman appeared a little flustered.

"What did you need Boone for?" she questioned.

"Well, we're supposed to go on a field trip today, and he filled in the permission form, but forgot to sign it. I was watching out the window and thought I'd catch him." She explained.

"I'll sign it, I'm his mother." She reached out for the piece of paper.

"His mother?" the teacher repeated, somewhat skeptically.

"Yeah…" she started.

"But, Shan." Andrew interrupted, "Aren't you Boone's sister?"

"What?" she looked at him, mystified.

"I _said_, aren't you Boone's sister?" he repeated.

"Well, yeah, I guess." She frowned, not knowing where he was going with this.

"So, that makes you my Aunt, doesn't it?" he persisted.

The teacher snatched the permission form back out of her hand. "Oh no, I'm sorry," she said, shaking her head, "Only a parent or guardian can sign."

"But I'm his _mother._" She glared at him.

"I…don't know." She looked at them, strangely.

'Look, kid,' she thought at him, 'I don't know what you're pulling here, but if you don't want to go on the field trip, just keep it up.'

'I don't care about the stupid field trip,' he smirked at her, having much more fun at the scene he was causing, than he could possibly have during yet another dull, boring field trip to the zoo. "My Aunt can't sign for me?" he pretended to be close to tears.

"No, I'm sorry Andrew, you'll have to stay behind." His teacher wondered why his Aunt would claim to be his mother.

'Screw you,' Shannon thought at him, "I'm sure he'll enjoy a day in class, much more than a field trip, see you after school, _nephew_."

She complained bitterly about it to Boone when she got home. He just started laughing. "It's so you." He commented. He refrained from pointing out that she _had_ admitted to being his sister.

"What?" she looked at him.

"You love to do that to people, embarrass them in public, don't you remember the incident that led me to get this." He indicated the silver bracelet on his left wrist hiding the tattoo he'd gotten shortly after their wedding.

"Yeah, I suppose. I'm still pissed at him, though." She shrugged, and indicated his wrist. "I can't believe you still have it, that you didn't get it removed or changed after I left." He'd considered it, but even with her gone, it didn't change the simple truth of what he'd had permanently written on his skin. "Let me see it."

He looked at her strangely, almost a little afraid, she thought to herself, before shaking his head no. He crossed his arms across his stomach, pressing the insides of his wrists protectively against himself, and dropped his head to stare at the floor. She reached forward, and pulled his left arm towards her. In spite of his negative response to her request, he gave no resistance as she turned his arm over. The faint scars started somewhere under the silver band and ran lengthwise up his wrist, mute accusation of what she'd driven him to do. She slid the bracelet off his wrist to reveal "Shannon's", barely marred by the aftermath of the long gone stitches she knew they must have sewn into him. She assumed the right one bore the same marks. She replaced the bracelet and let go of his wrist. He pulled it back against his body and drew a shuddering breath. They were silent for a few minutes as they each dealt with what they were privately thinking. He finally raised his head to look at her.

"I'm sorry, I'm an idiot." He smiled faintly.

"I'm sorry you're an idiot too." She smiled softy back and reached out to run her hand through his hair. She sighed and sat in the extra chair, not knowing what to do with herself.

He tried to get back to work, but her presence made it extremely difficult. He wasn't used to working with someone watching over his shoulder. "I'm trying to find a mistake. I've screwed up the numbers somehow."

"_The_ numbers?" she asked laughing.

"No, not _the_ numbers." He answered, exasperated.

"4, 8, 15," she started.

"Yeah, 16, 23, 42." He finished. "Can't you find something to do?"

"Like what?"

"Well…there's laundry," he suggested.

"I'm sure it'll still be there when you get around to it."

"But most of it's yours! You pretty much emptied your suitcase into the hamper when you unpacked." He protested.

"Most of it's mine?" she mused. "Well then, make sure you're careful not to let the colours run." She warned.

"I'm not your maid." He shook his head at her.

"No, brother dear, you're not, but I imagine you'll wash my clothes." She stood. "I'll leave you alone, to focus on your fascinating _numbers._"

He went looking for her just before lunch, to see if she wanted him to make her something to eat. He found her in the den, seated on the centre cushion of the couch, where she always used to sit to read before she'd left. She was staring blankly into space. As he approached he saw that she had his letters. Most of them were on the cushion to her right, there were two to her left, and one open on her knees.

The first one was dated November 19th, 2008. It would have been their third wedding anniversary. She'd opened it, expecting it to be a printout, but it was handwritten, as had the other two she'd managed to work her way through. She instinctively knew that the rest would be too. Each one was full of his acerbic wit and sarcasm. There were no pleas for her to come home, no mention of the horror he'd gone through. They were carefully written, no mention of his love for her, his desperate desire for her to come home, _that _was all evident in what he hadn't written, not what he _had._

They all ended the same, not with a wish that she be safe, but with a phrase that turned his wit back on her. "God help the world, now that you're loose on it again, Boone. No "All My Love," no "I Miss You," There was nothing to indicate how he felt. She knew he must have carefully considered each word, before he wrote it.

"Shan?" he looked at her, not getting a response. He tried again, "Shannon?"

"I need to be alone." She didn't look at him.

"Shan, I…" he started.

"Boone, alone means with you _not_ in the room." She still didn't turn her head.

He looked at her silently for a second, then went back to his office; any thought of hunger completely gone.

It was perhaps half an hour later when she appeared at the doorway, "Boone?"

"Yeah," he looked up at her, expecting a comment about the letters.

"I'll be getting to that laundry now." She wasn't looking at him. She looked sad and pensive.

"Okay." He frowned at her as she turned from the door.

He kept a careful watch on the clock, not wanting to miss picking Andrew up at school. At 3:30 he went looking for her, finding her out in the gym. She was on the cross trainer, her eyes were closed as she exercised. He could see the sweat seeping down from her hairline. He laughed quietly to himself when he realized she was wearing one of his t-shirts and a pair of his shorts. He waited until she sensed his presence, not wanting to startle her. "All my stuff was in the wash." She explained her attire. "I didn't think you'd mind."

"No, of course not," he laughed again. "I have to go get Andrew at school, do you want to come?"

"You're fucking well right I want to come, the little asshole deserves what I've got planned for him." She replied.

"Oh, God, no Shan, he's a kid, is it really worth it?" He shook his head at her response.

"I'm just going to throw on some jeans, I'll be right back. And we're going to straighten out this whole "Aunt" thing with the school." She shot over her shoulder as she headed for the house.

They stood in the school office, waiting their turn, Andrew sitting on a chair by the windows. They'd waited for him out front. He'd smirked evilly at her, as he'd come out the door, he'd spent the whole day enjoying the memory of that morning's amusement. Boone had added to it when he asked him if he wanted to give Aunt Shannon a kiss hello.

Over Boone's shoulder, she suddenly noticed the teacher from that morning, coming in the door. "Kiss me."

"What?" he was sure he'd misheard her.

"Kiss me," she repeated, "_now_!"

"Shan," he looked around a little wildly, "this is a school…you don't…"

She grabbed his head and pulled it towards her, kissing him passionately.

Andrew stared at them, mortified. At home, in private, she couldn't even sit on Boone's lap without being flustered when he came in. Here, _in his school_, she was kissing him like he was giving her CPR!

He finally pulled away. "Shannon, what the hell?" he whispered.

She ignored him, smiling instead at the woman, as if just noticing her. She was staring at them, horrified. "My brother and I just came to pick up my nephew. I hope your field trip went well." She said, innocently.

"Oh, my God," Boone, _and_ Andrew, both groaned.


	8. Happy Christmas Memories

After the scene in the school office, Boone had straightened out who Shannon was with both the somewhat less horrified teacher, and the school, having her added to Andrew's permanent record as the boys' mother. The poor teacher still looked a trifle unsettled at the news that she was his just stepsister; they both knew that the distinction sometimes made little, or no, difference to some people.

They stopped on the way home to drop Andrew off at a friends' house. Peter stood at the end of his walkway watching for them. When they turned the bikes off, he announced that his mom had asked Andrew to stay for supper, but wanted him to make sure it was okay with Andrews' dad. Boone looked a little reluctant.

"Boone, I know the food rules, it'll be fine," Andrew rolled his eyes and shook his head at his dad. This was obviously a bone of contention over which they'd clashed before.

"Food rules?" she frowned and looked at Boone. 'What the fuck?' she thought.

"I'm pretty careful about what we eat. We still, more or less, follow Jack's instructions from when we were rescued." He explained.

"Boone, for Christ's sake, that was eight years ago! Are you nuts?" she couldn't believe it. She knew the limitations that Jack had set out, and, while maybe okay for an adult to live by, to her, they seemed a more than a little constrained for a child.

"I'm not an idiot, Shannon. I know how long it's been." He glared at her. "It's just a healthy way to eat, so I don't see any reason to change!"

"Jesus, Boone, you are unbelievable. He's a kid, for gods' sake!" she looked at her son. "Are you telling me you've never been to McDonald's?"

"No," he shook his head, "never."

"We'll go tomorrow." She promised. His eyes widened at that and he smiled excitedly.

"Oh, no. No, no, no. You absolutely will not." He pulled her to face him. "I'm not poisoning my child with that crap."

"My kid goes to McDonald's just like every normal kid!" she spat.

"Well mine doesn't, so I guess you'd better find yourself another kid!" he shot back.

Andrew and Peter watched as they continued to fight, like the brother and sister they'd been raised as, for a few minutes; their faces inches apart, as they argued with each other. Finally Andrew had had enough. "Okay, guys." He tried, getting no response. "Guys!" he shouted.

They stopped and turned to him, Boone was flushed bright red; Shannon's jaw was clenched in anger. "Don't you _think_ you've embarrassed me enough for one day?"

"Sorry," Boone apologized; still shooting furious looks at Shannon.

"We'll…" she started restating her promise to him.

He held up his hands, stopping her. "I don't want to anymore." He shook his head at her. "It's not worth fighting over."

Returning home, Boone stopped her in the garage. "Shan, I don't think…that is, we _can't_ fight in front of Andrew."

She looked at him incredulously, "Boone, are you an idiot? That's what we _do;_ we fight. It's almost the whole basis for our relationship. I love how you challenge me constantly, and you love how I challenge you. So, to say we can't fight in front of Andrew is close to saying we can't talk in front of him at all."

"You think I don't _know _we enjoy fighting? Right now, I'm half convinced that you're being purposely obtuse just to piss me off. I _mean_ we can't fight over _him_, how I'm, I mean _we're_, raising him. He's already got an obvious edge over most kids; I don't want him to get the upper hand by thinking he can play us against each other." He tried to reason with her.

She thought about it for a few seconds. "Okay, I'll buy that." She had limited parenting experience, but what he said made sense, and she wanted what was best for their son as much as he did. He'd been doing this by himself for the last six years, so she figured he knew what he was talking about. For his part, he was just surprised that he'd won that battle so easily.

Without the need for him to hurry and rush to prepare dinner, a short while later, they found themselves sitting quietly in the back yard.

He had his head bent over a book; without realizing it, she was staring at the top of his head. Suddenly she realized why something about it was striking her as out of place. She got up and pulled his hair apart. He hadn't been expecting it and reached up to bat her hands away. "Hold still." She looked closer at his hair. She started chuckling. Shaking her head she asked him, "Boone, did you dye your hair?"

"Well…technically, no." he grimaced a bit.

"What's with the evasive answer? It was really a yes or no question." She frowned.

"I didn't, Andrew did." He shrugged.

"You let an eight year old dye your hair? She asked, disbelievingly.

"He wanted to know what I'd look like as a blonde, and I didn't really care." He shrugged again.

"Jesus, I thought your hair looked a lot lighter than I remembered. You are _such_ an idiot. Your hair's too dark to dye blonde without stripping it first." She shook her head at him.

"I don't know anything about that shit. I only know it's lighter!" he protested.

"Yeah, and now the dark roots are coming in. Do you _know_ how ridiculous you're going to look?" she asked, still laughing.

"I thought it'd just wash out," he started to look a little concerned.

"And just _how_ long ago did he do it?" she shook her head at his stupidity.

"Um, maybe a month, I don't know, I don't keep track of that kind of crap."

"Aaand after a month, you still thought it'd wash out?" she laughed at him.

"Oh shit! Christ, I'm an idiot." He briefly covered his face with his hands then looked at her expectantly, "Can we do anything about it?" He asked hesitantly.

"Yeah, you dumb fuck," she shook her head and laughed. "We'll dye it back to its' original colour, though you deserve to look like a circus freak." She was overplaying the effect his hair growing out would have, but he was buying every word, much to her delight.

He seemed reassured by that and leaned back in the lounge chair in which he was seated. "Tell me something about when you were gone. You've heard most of the mess I made of that time; I'd like to hear about your adventures." He prompted.

"I'd hardly call them adventures. Tell me, have you flown since the crash?" she wanted to know.

"Yeah, a couple of times, not fun." He remembered his abject terror.

"No shit. I'm okay with it now; I've done it so many times, but that first time, when I left, Jesus. I got myself so freaked out that I had an asthma attack in the walkway. The flight attendant had to lead me to my seat and give me a double vodka just to get me to sit down. Of course, that was after I'd had to explain why I was acting the way I was. The poor guy I was sitting next to probably still had the imprint from my fingers in his arm, and scars from my nails." She laughed at the memory. "You got my car keys and the directions to where I'd parked?"

"I did." He confirmed "Thanks for FedExing them from the airport."

"You don't still have the car, do you?" She was sure she hadn't seen it in the garage, but he'd kept her bike so, anything was possible.

He shook his head. "I kept it for a while, but sold it when it was obvious you weren't returning any time soon, if at all."

"So how come you kept my bike, but sold my car?" she wondered.

"Shannon, there's a big difference between holding on to an eighty-five hundred dollar motorcycle and an eighty-five thousand dollar car." He tried to justify his actions. "Anyway, I ride your bike when I want to get out by myself. I like the single seat it's got. Besides, I was going to give the bike to Andrew, as soon as he got tall enough to ride it."

"Don't you mean old enough." She corrected.

He shrugged and shook his head.

"Oooo, law abiding Boone Carlyle letting his kid ride a motorcycle underage." She laughed at how uncharacteristic of him that would have been.

"I just wanted someone to ride with. Chances are he'll end up short like me and wouldn't have been tall enough to ride it till he was of age anyway." He smirked. "So, are you going to continue avoiding the subject, or are you going to tell me where you went when you left?" He redirected the conversation.

"You want the short story or the long?" she asked.

He thought for a second, "Just the Cole's Notes for now." There would be plenty of time in the future to get the details.

She recounted how she gone from ticket booth to ticket booth looking for a first class seat to anywhere, ending up with a ticket to Brussels. On landing she'd gone at first to a hotel; then had found a furnished apartment for rent. She'd spent a few weeks looking around the city. "I was in a coffee shop when I first saw Mark." She stopped. "Are you _really_ sure you want to hear this?"

"I'm more interest in _what _you did than _who_, but I guess it's all interconnected." He shrugged. "Go on."

She suddenly needed the comfort of his arms around her, and got up, moving over to kiss him. She pushed his knees apart. He obediently spread them, putting his feet on the grass, so she could sit in front of him, pressing her back against his chest. He looped his arms around her; she covered them with her own, pulling his embrace tighter. She took a breath to start her story again, but then looked over her shoulder at him. "Is it okay, that I'm sitting like this when I'm about to tell you about being with another guy? I mean it seems more than just a little absurd."

"Shannon, there's nothing about us that isn't more than just a little absurd, don't let it stop you now." He shook his head. "Go on." He repeated.

"Okay, well then, he looked a little like you. About the same height, same hair colour, I mean, your _real_ hair colour." She glanced laughing over her shoulder at him.

"Bitch." He leaned down and kissed the side of her neck.

"I guess that's what attracted me to him in the first place. It's sick, I know. Anyway, he knew a good crowd, a party crowd, and he was someone to take home at night. But, fuck, was he stupid. He probably wasn't as bad as I remember, but, compared to you, to who I was used to talking to…God I missed talking to you Boone." She felt the tears start. "I'd find myself out in the city, enjoying a sight, and I'd turn to make a comment to you, and…" she stopped, took a deep breath and forced the tears back.

"Anyway, after about five months I couldn't stand his lack of intelligence any longer. Christmas was coming and the thought of having to put up with his inane chatter our first Christmas apart was more than I could face, so I told him I was moving on. We had no emotional attachment to each other, so he took it well. I'd always made him pay his own way, so it wasn't like he was losing a meal ticket either. For some reason I couldn't bring myself to spend your money on another man." She said, sarcastically.

"Really, Shan, a conscience? How very unlike you." He smirked.

She elbowed him in the ribs. "Anyway, I moved to Barcelona, went about the same pattern as Brussels, finding an apartment, seeing the sights, partying. When Christmas came, I was alone, but I thought I'd be able to handle it. Was I wrong! I started drinking champagne and orange juice first thing in the morning, switching to vodka and orange around noon. I can't tell you the number of times I found myself with the phone in my hand. But I knew it wouldn't be fair to either one of us if I called. I think I made it to late afternoon before I passed out in the bathroom with my head hanging over the toilet." She shook her head in amusement. "I can't believe I didn't drown."

"Late afternoon?" he echoed. "I made it a little farther than that, but of course _I_ was surrounded by my _loving_ family." He put as much sarcasm into the second last word as he could muster. She looked up over her shoulder at him questioningly. "My mother invited herself to dinner." He rolled his eyes. She nodded her understanding and rested her head back against his shoulder. "She was insufferable, insulting me snidely every chance she could. I kept sneaking off to take another anti-depressant; Heather eventually hid the bottle on me. I'd been home from the hospital for a couple of months, but they still had me on the meds, and I saw a shrink once a week. Anyway, by the time I served dinner, I was so stoned Elvis himself could have pulled a chair up to the table and I would have given him a plate without even batting an eye. I stupidly topped off the pills with a glass of wine while I picked at my food. Even though Heather kept trying to take the glass away from me without anyone else noticing, I persisted in finishing it. She'd cleared the table and we were still sitting there waiting for the coffee to finish brewing, when I guess I'd had enough of Sabrina. Apparently I told her she was the most cold-hearted, nastiest bitch anyone ever had the misfortune of calling mother, and that if I ever did successfully kill myself it would be all because of her; then I pitched face forward onto the table. I had a bruise on my forehead for a few days after that. Tom told me I'd said it to her in the same tone of voice that I would have used to tell her I liked her dress, with a smile on my face the whole time, appearing stone cold sober."

By the time he'd finished, she was leaning forward, laughing hysterically, while picturing the scene in her head.

"I didn't remember anything about it, of course. I think serving dinner was my last _actual_ memory. I woke up the next morning, lying on my stomach, fully dressed, crossways on my bed. They'd had Nick, my mothers' old chauffeur, carry me upstairs. Man, did I have a hangover." He was laughing and shaking his head at the memory of it. "Shit, nothing puts the Christ in Christmas like passing out at the dinner table."


	9. Sabrina's Reaction

She was lying face down on the bed, they were both naked, he was straddling her, massaging her shoulders, working his fingers deep into her muscles. The noise she was making deep in her throat reminded him of the purring of a contented cat. He smiled to himself at the analogy, knowing, both figuratively _and_ literally, how sharp her claws could be, having been victim to them more than once.

During the evening she'd recounted a bit more of her time in Brussels, going into more detail for him. She'd gone to pick Andrew up at nine, when he'd called to say he was ready, while Boone fixed the two of them a late supper. Andrew had sat with them for a while as they ate. She got the distinct impression that it was more because he wanted to be sure Boone ate something, than that he wasn't ready for bed. They'd come upstairs about midnight and he'd made the offer of a massage. She'd stripped her clothes off in an instant and had thrown herself on the bed.

She now lay limp and sated, close to sleep. He leaned down and blew softly in her ear. "Shan?" he murmured quietly.

"Hmmm?" she acknowledged.

"How about going across the road for a swim?" he suggested.

"Mm, mm," she answered in the negative.

"Skinny dipping in the moonlight?" he sweetened the deal.

Her eyes opened slowly. "You _are_ an evil man, Boone Carlyle."

"So, that's a yes?" he was still leaning over, whispering in her ear.

"Get off me." She smiled.

He pulled on his jeans and handed her his t-shirt. After padding quietly down the back stairs, they quickly exited the house.

On the beach they swiftly disrobed and waded into the water, relishing the silken feel of it on their naked flesh once they'd submerged themselves. They paused often to tease each other with gentle random caresses and quick kisses as they swam out to the raft he had anchored, in deeper water, a distance from shore. Pulling themselves up onto the platform, they lay side by side on their backs recovering from the slight exertion of the swim. She reached down for his hand and tangled their fingers together.

After resting for a minute, he turned on his side, and propped his head up on his elbow, gazing at her exposed body bathed in the light of the moon; her incredible beauty enhanced by its' glow. She smiled at the intensity of his scrutiny. Unable to restrain himself any longer he reached out and slid his hand over her breast, the residual water of the lake that remained on their skin acting as a lubricant. Suddenly wanting this to be all about him, slowly, not wanting to frighten him, not sure if he'd still find it threatening, she guided him onto his back, and slid herself on to him. She could sense his hesitancy, but he didn't put up any resistance as she rocked softly against him. She watched his face as he fought to try and keep his eyes open, losing himself in sensation. She used her intimate knowledge of what he liked to prolong the intensity as long as she could, her link to his thoughts aiding her. His lips were parted, his teeth biting at them, his tongue periodically sliding between them, he was breathing raggedly and groaning wordlessly, when he finally came. She smiled at the pleasure she'd given him and let herself relax against his chest.

'Christ, I love you,' he thought silently. She grinned tiredly against his neck. 'We can't fall asleep.' He cautioned, before doing exactly that. She snuggled up against him and let herself drift off.

They woke up several hours later, before daylight could expose them, and returned to the house.

Saturday morning they headed for the city to return her rental car. Boone asked her exactly where he was to meet her, knowing from his experience with her driving habits that there really was no chance that he'd choose to keep up with her. He quietly advised them both that he thought that they should probably go by his mothers' place to let her know Shannon was back. None of them were looking forward to _that_ encounter.

Reaching the highway, Andrew had watched in amusement as her tail lights disappeared in the distance. They hooked up at the rental place and headed, reluctantly, for Sabrina's.

Andrew was particularly concerned about the upcoming confrontation. He'd watched, as his grandmother reduced Boone to an emotional mess, almost every time they visited. Usually he'd drive the car away from her estate as quickly as he could, pulling in to the closest gas station and hurrying for the restroom. He'd return minutes later, his cheeks flushed, smelling slightly of vomit. Once he was old enough to realize exactly what it was that his father was doing in there, he'd started the habit of scooping change from the ashtray and buying him a bottle of water from the vending machine. He remembered the first time he'd wordlessly handed the bottle to Boone. His father had squeezed his brows together, fighting back tears as he realized that his son had known all along what he'd been trying to hide. Andrew had slightly higher hopes for this visit though. Even though she'd only been there for slightly less than a week, he could see how much his mothers' presence had added to Boone's self confidence.

They stood on the front step, Boone reaching out to ring the bell. He'd called ahead, so wasn't surprised when his mother, herself, answered the door. "Boone." She greeted with a smile. The smile faltered then transformed into a mask of disgust when she saw Shannon standing behind him. She regarded him with complete contempt for a moment before slapping his face as hard as she could, then slamming the door.

The three of them stood there in stunned silence for a minute before Shannon brushed past him and tried the door, finding it unlocked. Her surprise had quickly turned into a level of anger that more than matched Sabrina's. She flung the door open. Sabrina was striding angrily across the foyer. "Stop right there, you fucking bitch." She closed the distance between them and slapped her step-mother, putting all her weight behind it. "That's for hitting Boone. Now, and _every_ time I watched you do it the past."

"How _dare_ you," Sabrina's hand moved to her cheek. "Get out of my house."

"Gladly, after you've heard what I've got to say." Shannon said through gritted teeth.

"There's nothing you, or that pathetic excuse for a son I'm cursed with, have to say that I want to hear. Get. Out." She said the final two words slowly and distinctly, emphasizing each one.

"I don't give a flying fuck what you want to hear, _mother_." She sneered. Glancing back at the entrance, seeing the two of them still standing there, she realized that this was a discussion that _should not_ be held in front of Andrew.

"You ungrateful, selfish little bitch," Sabrina spat, "Don't you dare call me mother." Shannon grabbed her arm, pulling her towards the den; Sabrina tried, unsuccessfully, to pull it away. The door slammed behind them, and the yelling continued.

Boone stood frozen to the spot for a minute, the imprint of her hand bright red on his cheek, before he shook himself out of his daze. "Andrew, you okay?" his first thought was for his son. The boy looked up at him, obviously shaken, but nodded his head. "I want you to wait here; we'll be leaving as soon as Shannon and I finish talking to my mother." He nodded again; Boone bent down and hugged him. "It'll be okay." Boone reassured him. He headed across the foyer, knowing that a week ago, he wouldn't have had the confidence to confront his mother.

As Boone opened the door to the den, Andrew could hear his grandmother insult him in her usual fashion. "Are you going to let your _wife_ fight your battles for you, or have you actually grown a backbone?" before the door closed and the yelling started up again.

Half an hour later they were back in the car. Sabrina hadn't come back out of the den when they left. Though nothing had really been resolved; a lifetime of baggage couldn't possibly have been taken care of in such a short time, they'd both made it perfectly clear to her that they were back together again, permanently, and her opinion was of no consequence whatsoever. He'd also added that he'd put up with her derogatory remarks and snide insults long enough, they were to stop immediately, or she'd never see her grandson again. He'd hoped the threat would be enough to buy him some peace.

Unexpectedly, he turned the car into a McDonald's. She frowned looking at him out of the corner of her eye, wondering who he was and what had he done with Boone?

"Boone, what're you doing?" Andrew asked from the back seat.

"After what we just went through, I thought, what the hell," he shrugged, shaking his head.

He held the door to the restaurant open for them. She kept looking at him, trying to hide her smile as she watched the emotions play across his face. He never been able to hide his feelings, especially from her, that's why it had been so easy for her to know he'd been in love with her all those years. Right now, she thought, he looked kind of queasy.

Andrew looked up at the menu, "What do you usually get?" he asked Shannon.

"Yeah, Shan, what _do_ you usually get?" he echoed snidely, smirking at her, knowing full well that she probably ate this stuff about as often as he did, which was never. She shot him a nasty look and elbowed him in the ribs.

After the two of them made their selections, the lady behind the counter looked inquiringly at Boone, he asked for a bottle of water in a slightly strangled tone. That's when Shannon started opening laughing at him. 'Food elitist,' she thought.

After paying for their food, he made a beeline for the door, wanting to get away from the miasma inside the restaurant as quickly as possible. They sat at one of the outside tables, and unpacked their lunch. He watched, wincing slightly, as they downed burgers, fries and what passed for milkshakes. At one point she offered him a fry, smiling in amusement. She was surprised when he took it from her and took a tentative bite. The rest of it quickly went in the garbage. She'd figured she'd have had an easier time getting him to eat bugs, but remembered that he'd already done that. She remembered a twelve year old Boone, standing in the back yard, a grasshopper in his hand. She'd dared him to eat it, saying that she'd tell his mom he kissed her if he didn't. He'd popped it in his mouth, even at that age already unable to deny her anything. She laughed out loud at the memory.

"What're _you_ laughing at?" He thought it was because of his reaction to the French fry.

"You remember when we were kids and I got you to eat that grasshopper?" she asked.

"God, I think I can still taste it," he made a disgusted face.

"Will you guys tell me more stories about when you were growing up?" Andrew asked excitedly.

"Sure, I've got lots of entertaining stories about your dad." She winked at Boone.

'Oh God,' he groaned silently.

In the car on the way home, Andrew suddenly spoke up from the back seat. "Dad?"

'Oh shit,' Boone thought, he never called him that unless he was sick or upset. He glanced at the boy in the rear view. He definitely didn't look well.

Shannon looked over her shoulder at him. "Boone, pull over."

He'd already started turning the wheel before she'd even managed to get all three words out.

She held the boys' head as he threw up on the side of the road.

Boone managed to hold off on the "I told you so's" until they were alone that night.


	10. Andrews' Birthday

They were seated at the dinner table the next evening when Andrew reminded her that she'd promised to tell him some stories about Boone from when they were kids.

She looked across at her brother, automatically thinking of him that way given the nature of Andrews' request, and ran through her catalogue of memories. Boone looked decidedly uncomfortable as a wicked smile spread across her face.

She watched and waited for his response as she said, "Your dad makes a very pretty girl."

'Oh shit,' he thought, knowing exactly where she was going with this, he winced, his cheeks starting to blush.

She laughed in appreciation at the look of embarrassment with which she'd been rewarded.

Andrew looked at him, appraisingly, "Yeah, I guess he would." giving Shannon a conspirators' grin, as she started recounting the story.

Her friend, Cindy, had been over. They were in her bedroom, putting makeup on each other, and had gotten bored with it, when Cindy had asked her if her brother was home. She'd been infatuated with him that summer, and had been trying, unsuccessfully to get Shannon to set them up. Even though refusing to consciously acknowledge her feelings for him, she'd kept an arsenal of excuses, for not hooking any of her friends up with him, at the ready. Her question had given Shannon an evil idea.

"How old were we, do you think?" She frowned at him, unable to remember.

He thought a second, "Must have been fourteen, fifteen. I wasn't driving yet, I remember that."

"No, if you'd had the car, there's no way you would have been home." The car had been his sixteenth birthday gift, and he'd used it to escape from the increasing awkwardness he'd felt living in the same house with her. His hormones raging once his adolescence had passed; and he'd entered his teen years.

"I can't remember where we found you, or what you were doing. Probably something dull and serious like reading War and Peace or some other stupid thing. God, you were such a dork."

"I was not a dork!" he protested, then paused. "Okay, maybe I was, just a little, but I was a hot dork, right?" he asked with a smirk.

"Ooooh, yes," she nodded. Even at fifteen he'd been incredibly good looking, "you were that." She reassured him.

They'd persuaded him to come upstairs with them, each of the girls promising him a kiss if he went along with what they'd had planned. Though all three of them knew that there was only one of them he was really interested in kissing.

Upstairs, she'd seated him in a chair and had begun to apply the makeup. Starting with eyeliner, mascara and eye shadow, she'd applied it carefully, with a practiced hand. She'd been careful to put on just enough; her intention had never been to turn him into a circus clown by garish over application. As she'd worked she'd become increasingly amused by how pretty he was turning out, while he'd stared, fascinated, at her face, so close to his. Standing in front of him, with the compact of blush in her hand, the brush poised over his cheek, she'd suddenly remembered the promise of a kiss, and had put the brush back, snapping the lid of the case closed. She'd then applied the same lipstick she'd used on him, and had leaned forward, kissing him hard.

She paused in her story, briefly, to reflect on a private memory of that day, recalling the thinly veiled desire that had been so evident in his eyes. He remembered the erection that he'd had; thankfully hidden by the makeup case she'd put in his lap when she'd started.

Her ploy had worked better than she'd anticipated. "When I pulled back, his cheeks were flushed so bright red; it looked like I'd smeared the lipstick on them." She laughed. "Anyway, the effect of the makeup was amazing; he looked so feminine, so _very_ pretty."

Andrew has been sniggering through the whole thing, but at her last words he almost doubled over in the chair, holding his stomach; laughing uncontrollably.

She recalled that she'd remembered at that point that Sabrina had a few wigs in her closet. She'd gone and gotten one without telling either of the other two what she'd had planned. When she'd returned, and he'd seen what she was carrying, he'd flatly refused to let it go any farther. Even the promise of another kiss from her hadn't been enough to make him budge.

"Christ Shan, if I'd let you put that wig on me, the next thing I knew, you'd have had me in a dress and high heels! God you were a bitch! There was no way I was going to let you turn me into a cross dresser." He protested.

"Do you think we could do it now?" Andrew wanted to know.

"Yeah…" she started.

"No, no way, not a chance." Boone shook his head. "In case neither of you noticed, I'm not fifteen any more; a_nd _I've got work to do."

"I could promise to kiss you."

"Yeah, that'd really get you somewhere. It doesn't have quite the same allure that it had then." He smiled.

"Okay, then I could threaten to never kiss you again.' Shannon substituted.

"Suuure, like that'd last more than twenty-four hours." He laughed at her.

"Whoa, don't you sound all irresistible and sure of yourself." She grinned. "What do you want to do? Put yourself in a bottle and label it 'Obsession for Shannon?'"

He got up and moved around the table, leaning down and kissing her before whispering in her ear, "No, it's more like you're 'Obsession for Boone.'"

Andrew grimaced at the squickiness of his parents' kissing.

"Do the dishes," he instructed before disappearing through the door.

She showed up not more than fifteen minutes later. He was working in the other kitchen, the items he needed placed in a neat and organized fashion on the counter. "Where's Andrew?"

"Watching T.V., what're you making?" she perched on a stool. The conversation continued for a while as she watched him work.

At one point he reminded her of Andrew's approaching birthday. "I'm having a party for him next weekend."

"A party?" she grimaced, picturing a yard full of screaming kids. "Do we have to?"

"Shan, that's what kids do on their birthday's, they have parties, of course we have to. Jeeze, stop being so self-centred." He shook his head in exasperation.

"And what are you going to feed them, what with your _'food rules?'_" she ridiculed him. "I'm sure they'll be just thrilled to see rice cakes, apples and fish."

"Burgers, dogs, cake, the usual stuff." He answered casually, shrugging. "Don't you worry about it, I've got more than a few secret tricks. They'll never know they're following my '_food rules.'_" He mocked her, and then smiled, leaning across the counter to kiss her.

The following Saturday found them on the beach, surrounded by a group of Andrews' friends. The kids played with the water guns Boone had bought for them and splashed and swam in lake. He fired up the boat and took a few of the older ones water skiing, which meant that Shannon was left alone to deal with the remaining ones. She quickly became more than just a little frazzled as the kids screamed and darted around her everywhere, all of them, including her own son, seeming, to her, possessed. The eight little boys she was watching, somehow, in her head, multiplied three fold into two-dozen. She cursed Boone silently for leaving her alone with a pack of wild animals as she frantically tried to keep track of them all, picturing in her head trying to explain to a parent how their son ended up floating off into the middle of the lake, because she was incapable of supervising a small group of children for half an hour. She'd reached the absolute end of her patience, and was about to tell them all to sit the fuck down, when he got back.

He tried to hide his amusement when he saw the slightly wild look in her eyes. He quickly took charge and had the boys sitting quietly with plates of food in no time. 'Asshole,' she thought as he looked at her smugly.

When the last present was opened and the final car door slammed after the last of the guests had been picked up, they led Andrew into the garage. His brand new dirt bike stood in the center of the space, a card taped to the seat. He squealed in delight and threw his arms around each of them in turn, adding a kiss to Shannon's cheek. She smoothly accepted the thanks, though she'd actually had nothing to do with the gift. Boone had already bought it weeks before she returned, though he'd handed her the card before sealing it, so she could scrawl her name next to his.

She'd asked Boone why they were waiting until after the kids had left before showing Andrew what they'd gotten him, knowing that she would have wanted to flaunt something like that in her friends' faces at the same age. He patiently explained that revealing the existence of a brand new dirt bike to a bunch of kids their ages would only have been asking for trouble as they all pleaded to ride it, when he hadn't gotten their parents permission. Not only that, he wasn't prepared to take the responsibility if someone wrapped it around a tree.

Boone told Andrew that they'd signed him up for a one-week dirt bike camp later in the summer.

"Can I ride it now?" he couldn't wait to start it.

They let him tool around in the back yard for a while, dodging trees and lawn furniture, only dropping it twice and skinning the bark off the side of just one tree. He emerged from his novice run with nothing more than some skinned knuckles and grass stains on his knees.

Andrew went to bed early, exhausted from the day's activities, Boone tucking in him just before nine. When he returned to Shannon, in the back yard, he found her sound asleep in one of the lounge chairs. He breathed a small laugh at the knowledge that the day's activities had been hard on more than just their son. He got a blanket from the house and draped it over her, careful not to wake her, softly kissing her forehead.

She slid into bed with him several hours later. He was lying on his side, facing the wall, his breathing slow and rhythmic. She spooned up against him, wrapping her arm around his waist, pulling him tight. He moaned softly in his sleep, but let himself be drawn into her embrace without awakening. She kissed his neck and let herself drift back off.


	11. Claire's Reaction

Andrew sat in the backyard, staring out over the lawn, the endless possibilities of summer stretched out before him. The last day of school had been the day before his birthday party. The two events always, more or less, coincided, a double reason to celebrate. He was looking forward to the week at camp, and hoped that he'd also get a week to spend with Claire, Aaron and Sarah. Aaron was 8 months older than he, and Sarah a year and a half younger, it was a toss up if Charlie would be home or not, the life of a rock god was so unconventional. He'd spoken to Claire on his birthday, she always remembered to call, as did many of the other survivors in Boone's tightly knit group, but he'd forgotten to ask if he could come for a week over the summer. He went inside to see if it was okay to call her and invite himself. He came across Shannon first, so asked her.

"Sounds like a plan," she nodded her assent, thinking, ruefully, that he'd probably get farther with Claire than she would. She watched his retreating back as she remembered her own conversation with Claire.

When the phone had rung the morning of his birthday, she'd answered it. "Hello?"

"Oh, oh, I'm sorry. I must have the wrong number." A female voice had responded sounding puzzled.

"Claire?" she'd recognized the voice immediately, the accent certainly helped.

There was silence for a few seconds. "Shannon?"

"Yeah," she'd confirmed.

"What are _you_ doing _there_?" Claire's voice had been tight and suspicious.

"I, uh, I came back last week." She'd been hesitant in her answer, on her guard given the tone of the other woman's voice.

"I want to speak to Boone. Is he alright?" The last had been said with concern.

"Yeah, he's fine. Claire, why…" she'd started.

"I _want_ to speak to Boone." Claire had repeated, interrupting her.

"Sure, but…" the line had gone dead.

Confused, she'd headed down the hall to his office hearing the sound of his cell ringing. "Boone Carlyle." there was a pause.

Shannon had reached the door and stopped. He'd been sitting in his chair, his back to the entrance, the phone pressed to his ear with his right hand, rubbing his forehead with his left. His posture had spoken volumes; his shoulders slumped, his head hanging forward. She'd listened to his side of the ensuing conversation.

"Yeah, she, uh, she came back last week." He'd sounded as guilty as he looked, like a kid who'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "I'm, you know, I'm fine." He'd stopped. "I know, but, but when I saw her, and she seems like she wants to stay, and I couldn't, and she says she won't leave again, and I just, I couldn't, and…" he'd been babbling as he'd tried to justify himself, his voice low and pleading. Claire must have interrupted him; there was another pause as he'd listened. "I know, please, I know." She'd watched as he'd silently held his left wrist out in front of himself and turned it over, staring at the scars, while listening to Claire. "I know, I will, I promise. I love you too." He'd straightened a bit in the chair, though still looking like a beaten puppy, "He gets home from school at about five, call back then. And, Claire thanks." He'd snapped the phone closed, and stared in silence at the wall for a minute. "I know you're there."

"I wasn't trying to hide." She'd waited, but he didn't say anything. "She wouldn't talk to me."

He'd taken a deep breath, "No, I don't imagine she would." He'd turned his chair to face her. She'd realized he looked defeated again, the self-confidence he'd gained in the last week, shaken. "She's not too impressed with either one of us right now." He'd closed his eyes briefly. "She's sensitive you know, I mean in an island way. God, I don't know why I'm explaining that, of course you know. You know, way back, she said she had a feeling, days before you left, that something bad was going to happen. She said she was worried sick about me without knowing why. What happened to me, what I did to myself because of you, was hard on all of them, but Claire most of all. They _lived_ it with me, you weren't here; you don't know what I put everyone through. We survived a year on the island, against overwhelming odds, and here I was trying to kill myself. They automatically came to my defense, Jack had drilled into all our heads that we had to stand up for each other, protect each other. They're more than my friends, they're my family, Shan, more so now than when you left, because of what I went through, dragging them all with me. All the ones in our little group, and I mean all, even the ones you wouldn't have expected, rallied around me; supported me. But I'm afraid that it came at a price, one _you're_ going to have to pay."

"They all hate me, don't they?" she'd realized it only made sense.

"Hate's a pretty strong word. I think they're definitely all going to be a little wary, and I know they're going to think I'm a complete fool for taking you back. I should have realized that. Once I accepted you back, I was just so happy to have you with me again, I didn't think about the others. You saw my mother's reaction, it's going to be something like that, but without the slapping, well maybe except for Sawyer, and I think he might just deck me. Tell me he's going to beat some sense into me. Either that or he'll be happy to see you back, figuring you'll finally drive me to successfully offing myself, and he'll get that shot at you he's always wanted." He'd said the last with an attempt at a smile.

"If you'd realized, that day, how they'd all feel, would you have turned me away?" she'd waited for his answer.

"No, don't be ridiculous." He'd shaken his head. "What other people think, about me, about us, how can you possibly think that it matters? In most people's eyes, we're just _wrong_, so many, many kinds of wrong, but that didn't stop me from marrying you."

She'd drawn some small reassurance from that and crossed the distance between them. "Don't let them undermine you, Boone; the doubts that Claire's caused to resurface in your head. They have no more validity now than they did half an hour ago."

His eyes had narrowed in confusion.

"Look at yourself, how you're sitting, you're all folded in on yourself again."

He'd realized she was right and straightened up in the chair. "Shan, it's going to take some time. You've only been back a week and a half. I know I feel, at least before that call, a little more confident. But it's going to take me a while. Six years of my fucked up life aren't going to be fixed in a week. I know I'll have set backs, just bear with me."

She'd smiled and nodded, reaching out to run her fingers through his hair. "We're going to have to tell the others, that is, if Claire hasn't called them all already. You think I should be the one to call them? I can handle the heat, I don't think you can."

"They'll all probably end up phoning me anyway, even if it's just to call me every synonym for "fool" they can think of." He'd shrugged. "But if you could make the initial calls, I'd sure appreciate it."

He'd given her a list of their phone numbers, and she'd spent the rest of the day, uncomfortably calling each and every one of them. Sawyer had been the hardest; she'd known he wouldn't pull any punches.

"Well, well, Sticks. You come _crawlin'_ back, did ya?" She'd heard the sneer in his voice. "You know, you actually forced me to pretend I liked Metro. You owe me. Darlin' you con a man, the way you did, makin' him think you love him so much you'll spend the rest 'a your lives together, you gotta know you're leavin' a powerful lot 'a damage behind. He's got a kid. You leave that kid with no daddy 'cause 'a his momma, and no momma 'cause she's off sight seein', you're gonna set a heap 'a hate lose on this world. You know I know that."

"But, Sawyer, I do love him. It wasn't a con, not about that, not about any of it. I just know that if I'd stayed I would have ended up resenting him, resenting all of it, hating him for being my jailer. It wouldn't have been right for either of us. Christ, I was only twenty years old when we crashed, and suddenly I was a mother and a wife, with my fucking _brother_ of all people, someone who I'd always thought I hated. I wasn't prepared for all of that! I figured, I'd go, get it all out of my system, and come back when I was ready. Fuck, it all sounded so reasonable when I left, now it just sounds so stupidly selfish and self-centred. I had no idea…shit." She'd shaken her head, unable to convey how sorry she was, how much she hadn't anticipated how unbelievably bad Boone's reaction would turn out to be.

She'd called Claire last. Actually, she'd had Boone get Claire on the phone first, and then had him pass the phone to her. The usual sunny and friendly eternal optimist had been guarded and more than a little hostile. "He's like a brother to me," the irony of that wasn't lost on either one of them, "and you almost killed him. I love him enough that I'll respect his decision to take you back, but, Shannon, anything happens to that man, that sweet, dear man, because of you…you'll wish you'd been eaten by the monster, or taken by The Others."

All, in all, June 21st, Andrews' actual birthday, had been anything but celebratory for her, as survivor after survivor had demonstrated their loyalty to Boone, and their mistrust of her.

She shook herself out of her reverie as Andrew came to tell her that Claire had said yes to the weeklong visit, but not until August, they were going away until then. As he ran out the back door, she headed for the office to tell Boone.

"You should have asked me before you told him it was okay, we need to work as a team here, you know _we're_ his parents, with an "s" that's both of us." He lectured.

Jesus, who peed in his cornflakes, she wondered? She was still not used to the whole parenting thing. Why didn't a kid come with an instruction manual or rulebook?

"Fine, then, _you_ tell him he can't go," she responded, sounding childishly petulant.

"Fuck! It's not about him not going. It's about us deciding _together_ what he does." She was seriously pissing him off.

They argued back and forth for a few minutes, until Andrew appeared at the door. "Fighting again?" he asked, looking a little amused. He'd come to realize that there was no malice in their endless arguments; it was just how they were with each other. They stopped at the sound of his voice.

"Yeah," Boone looked a little sheepish; Shannon was still glaring at him. "So you're going to Charlie and Claire's?"

He nodded, "Shan said it'd be okay."

"Yes, I understand that she did." Boone shot her a nasty look.

Andrew hid his smile. "I just wanted to know if I can go to Kevin's?"

"It's okay with me, Boone, _dear_, what do you think?" she was all syrupy and innocent eyed.

He rolled his eyes and shook his head before dropping it to his hands in defeat.


	12. Alone Time

The rain started as a light drizzle while they were in the middle of the lake. Boone quickly spun the wheel heading the boat for home, pushing the throttles against their stops. The heavens suddenly opened and the rain started coming down in torrents. Reaching shore, Shannon scrambled out, dropping the fenders over the side and tying the small craft against the dock. He pulled out the protective covering; working together they made short work of securing it. They ran; laughing, up the short wooden structure, reaching the middle of the road, he put out his hand to stop her.

"Why are we running?" he had to put his mouth to her ear to be heard over the deafening sound of the water. He indicated their clothes, they were already soaked through to the skin, looking more like they gone for a swim fully dressed, than for a boat ride.

"Reflex action," she laughed, "It rains, you run."

They continued at a more normal walking pace, letting themselves in through the gate when they reached the back yard. He put his hand out to stop her again. "Would you like to dance?" he held out his hand.

Shannon inclined her head in assent, and took it. Boone pulled her close then spun her out, their arms extended, before pulling her back against his chest, almost immediately pushing her away again. He snapped her half way back then raised his hand and twirled her beneath it. Their movements were fluid, perfectly synchronized, almost as if choreographed. They'd taken a dance class together his senior year in high school; it _hadn't_ been his idea. Shannon had tried to get her then current boyfriend to sign up with her, but when he'd laughed in her face and refused she'd broken up with him on the spot. She'd signed the two of them up for it instead and had informed him in no uncertain terms what he was going to be doing every Tuesday at 7:30 for the next eight weeks. That it conflicted with his tennis lessons hadn't concerned her at all. At first Boone had been flustered at having her in his arms, but had overcome his unease by focusing on learning the proper steps instead of obsessing on the smell of her hair as she pressed her head against his shoulder.

They continued for a few minutes, in the subdued light of the afternoon rain storm, before Boone dipped her low, then lower, finally letting her settle against the grass. Shannon closed her eyes as the rain beat against her face. He watched her for a second before joining her to lie on the lawn, his head, as he kissed her, blocking the rain. He slid his left leg around hers and flipped her so that she was on top of him. Something about it bothered her, it took a second for the underlying reason to surface, when it did she pulled away from him suddenly, he blinked as the rain suddenly ran into his eyes.

"Wait just a damn minute. How is it you didn't know it was going to rain?" Even with the proper medical facilities, his right leg had been so badly damaged that it was likely that he'd always have been able to sense an impending storm anyway. With the makeshift O/R that Jack had, for years after the Beechcraft incident he'd oftened end up hobbling around whenever it was going to rain, sometimes having to resort to using a walking stick. Jack had always avoided him during those times, as if somehow he'd failed him.

"Who says I didn't know?" Boone held his hand over his forehead to divert the worst of the water and grinned at her.

She thought back and remembered him massaging his right shin earlier in the day. "You're a dick, you know that."

"Yes, but you're still going to have sex with me in the rain." He tugged on the bottom of her tee shirt pulling it out of her shorts.

Their sodden clothes clung to their bodies like they'd been glued with contact cement, each article of clothing giving up its' grip on their skin reluctantly. His jeans were the worst, after a struggle Shannon managed to peel them down his legs, only to realize she hadn't taken off his shoes. He watched while she fumbled ineffectively at the rain-swollen laces, before toeing them off, still done up. She looked up his body, the thin jersey of his boxers clung to him, he might as well have been naked as the almost transparent material revealed everything. Boone reached forward and undid the clasp of her bra, brushing his hands across her breasts as he pushed the two halves apart and slid the straps down her shoulders. The rest of their underwear followed without putting up too much of a fight.

They rolled in the mud and the grass, kissing passionately before finally coming to rest, Shannon back on top again. Boone sat up, as she straddled him, neither one of them wanting the distraction of the rain in their faces. As she slid herself onto him, he threw his head back and closed his eyes; she took the opportunity to nibble softly at the exposed flesh of his throat, moving to bite down harder on his collarbone, finally sucking his ear lobe into her mouth. He groaned and shuddered at that. Shannon had first learned, all those years ago in his hotel room in Sydney, that for him it was one of his most sensitive erogenous zones. When she'd done it then, and every time thereafter, he quickly passed the point of no return. He supported himself on his hands leaving her to hold them together as she moved against him, his dark hair stained black by the rain. He slid one hand between them, when he touched her she mimicked his earlier motion, lifting her face to the rain and moaning in pleasure.

Afterwards, they lay on the turf, limbs entwined as the warm July afternoon rain continued.

They'd been waiting for this week all month. Andrew was finally away at camp. They both felt a little guilty that they'd been looking forward so eagerly to shipping him off. But the thought of a week alone together, in their own home, something they'd never, ever experienced before, was irresistible.

Boone breathed a small laugh, "I love you, you know." He reached out and ran his hand over her shoulder.

Shannon grinned back at him, shaking her head. "You're an idiot." She traced her thumb over his lips. 'I love you too,' she thought, softly.

He rose and held his hand down to her to help her up. As he turned to go into the house, she suddenly grabbed his shoulders; sliding her arms around his neck she lifted herself onto him, locking her ankles around his back, and burying her face against his neck. He staggered slightly under her weight, and then moved unsteadily towards the back deck, leaving their clothes behind, abandoned puddles of fabric on the lawn Climbing the slick wooden stairs he supported Shannon with one hand, while holding the railing with the other, praying he wouldn't slip. Inside he turned to lock the back door behind them, then moved across the kitchen to the back stairs and started up, only almost tripping once.

'You drop me, you're a dead man,' she warned him, without lifting her head.

Boone steadied himself and made the rest of the journey to the bedroom without mishap. Crossing the room he reached the bed, placing one knee on it and laying her wet, and muddy body on the clean bedspread, following her down, her legs still linked behind his waist.

They'd warned the staff that they were off limits for the week. They were to act like they'd gone away, there were to be no phone calls, no knocks on the door, nothing. Then they'd locked the doors and closed all the drapes. This was going to be _their_ week. Hell could freeze over, Armageddon could reign, Satan could overrun the land; they didn't care.

While he was driving Andrew to camp, the bike carefully strapped down in the back of the stores' delivery van, she made a special trip to the grocery store, buying all the decadent things she could think of, and, giving a thought to him, all of his favourites as well. He'd introduced her to the man at the fresh seafood counter shortly after she'd gotten back. He'd wanted to be sure, if he sent her in by herself, that she got the same quality that he'd made the guy understand that he expected. Boone was careful to never appear demanding; he just approached the man with a level of professionalism that won him instant respect. Shannon thanked the man as he handed her the packages, he'd had a few things tucked away in the back, just in case his favourite customer made an appearance.

At the liquor store, she bought sake, champagne, wine and his favourite beer. He wasn't much of a drinker, in fact she'd only ever seen him drunk once, and that was thanks to Sawyer, what an asshole the southerner had been _that_ night, but she wanted to be sure she had everything he might have a taste for.

She piled it all in the trunk of his car and drove home.

When Boone got back, she showed him her purchases. The sashimi grade tuna she'd acquired had been received with enthusiasm. The chocolate sauce had been a harder sell, but when she explained what she intended to do with it; it received the same level of excited eagerness.

They indulged every fantasy they'd ever dreamt up. Moving from room to room, watching T.V. naked, wrapped around each other, sitting in his office chair, even employing the laundry room. They were insatiable. After six days, they were happily exhausted. They were lying on the bathroom floor, cushioned by the mound of towels that had accumulated over the week, more covering them, when she stirred from sleep. Shannon's eyes opened slowly, she was trying to understand why the bed was so lumpy and soft. She rubbed herself against him. Boone was face down beside her, his arm thrown across her chest. Shannon looked at him for a minute; his hair was in his face, some of it caught in his eyelashes, his cheeks red and flushed, even in sleep. His lips looked bruised and swollen; she imagined hers' probably appeared much the same. In the back of her mind, she noted that he needed a haircut. She'd have to take care of that later. He looked so cherubic; she had a hard time believing what they'd done the night before. She realized where they were.

Shannon guessed from the light coming through the window that it was later than either of them wanted it to be. She gently stroked the arm that lay across her breasts. He moaned slightly. She poked him in the ribs, till he frowned and demanded, in an irritated tone, "What?"

"Hey Casanova, you have to pick up our kid today." She reminded him with hesitation, not wanting their time alone together to end.

"Just a few more minutes," Boone mumbled.

She laughed quietly, "Come on Sleeping Beauty, you have to get motivated. Little boy, blonde hair, grey eyes, nine years old, waiting for his dad to come get him?"

"Call and tell him to ride the bike home." He still hadn't moved an inch or opened his eyes. "Shit, I'm going to hell for that aren't I?"

"That's okay, I'll be right beside you, in fact I'll get us the room with the fireplace." She reached over and poked in him the side again.

She was rewarded as he opened one eye. Looking around he asked, "Why're we sleeping in the bathroom?"

"Jesus, just how sex stupid _were_ you last night?" Shannon regarded him with amusement.

"I think, after that last time in the bedroom, I was pretty much cooked. Did we do it again after that?" Boone made it sound like a serious question, but the smirk on his face kind of ruined the effect.

"Why do you think we're lying on the floor in the bathroom?" she smiled back.

He finally rolled over, dragging his hand slowly across her breasts as he moved. "Well, seeing as we're _already_ lying down, maybe it could muster myself up for one more. Come here."

"Okay, this whole role reversal thing is now going too far, I can't believe _I _have to be the responsible one here. We're not having sex again, well, at least not right now. You have to go and get Andrew." Shannon got a groan in response.

"Life sucks," he complained, trailing his fingers over her softly.

"Yeah, pretty much, but you'll get over it." Her hand slid slowly down his body, her breathing suddenly heavy. "No, we can't, oh, god…shit, yes we can." Her eyes closed as she stroked him, her self-restraint about as strong as tissue paper.

Half an hour later they were back in the bedroom, Boone already wearing jeans and a tee. "Back to reality," he watched her finish dressing.

"Reality bites," she pulled her hair into a ponytail.

She watched from the end of the driveway as he drove away in the van, and then returned to the house to pick up the detritus that was mute evidence of their debauched week. She wondered, idly, how the hell they'd managed to get chocolate stains on the curtains in the den, as she went from room to room picking up plates, glasses, bottles, and an empty spray whipped cream container, that for the life of her, she couldn't remember buying.


	13. He Goes Away

He'd gotten up in the middle of the night, something worrying at the back of his mind, though he didn't know what. He'd slid Shannon's head gently off his shoulder, careful not to wake her as he'd slipped out of the bed. He'd gone to check on Andrew, in case he was the source of his unease. The boy was lying sprawled in bed, dressed in a pair of plaid boxers, sound asleep, the blankets kicked off. Boone had pulled them back up, careful not to disturb him. He'd then padded down the back stairs, checking around the house, but finding nothing amiss. He'd returned to the bedroom, shrugging off the feeling as nothing.

The moonlight coming in through the window fell across the bed. Shannon had rolled over on to her back; one arm was thrown up over her head, the blankets pushed down to her waist. He stood by the bed and regarded her for a minute, before grabbing his pillow and propping it up against the footboard. He felt wide awake, and thought he'd watch her sleep for a while.

She woke in the morning, her hand sliding out to touch him, a frown on her face as her hand encountered emptiness. Her eyes slowly opened to look for him. He was lying on his side at the foot of the bed, bent at the waist. It looked like he'd been sitting up, but had fallen over in his sleep. 'What the hell?' she wondered, before reaching down and tickling the soles of his feet.

He twitched a few time before jerking himself awake, bashing his head hard against the footboard. "Ouch, fuck."

Christ, she thought, he's an accident waiting for a place to happen. She'd often wondered how he hadn't severed all the fingers on his left hand. Given how much he cooked, she'd always figured an unfortunate knife incident was pretty much a given. God, he was clumsy. She laughed as she saw that he already had a band-aid on one of his fingers.

"What the hell are you doing down there?" she shook her head, as he levered himself up to a sitting position, rubbing at the knot forming on the back of his head.

"I got up in the night, and couldn't get back to sleep, so I thought I'd watch you for a bit." He had his eyes squeezed shut as he massaged the site of the impact.

"Yeah, like _that's_ not a bit stalkerish. Christ, I'd really appreciate not waking up with your stinking feet in my face." She reached down to tickle them again. He pulled them reflexively up against himself.

She looked at him sitting like that, naked, vulnerable, with his knees drawn up, his eyes still closed as he rubbed the back of his head. She twisted to move down the bed and pushed his knees apart.

His eyes snapped open, "Shan, what….oh god." He reached down to lace his fingers in her hair.

He was on his cell phone when she got back from the shower. "Of course, I'll come. Tell Uncle Will, I'll be there as soon as I can. Thanks, for letting me know."

"Pittsburgh?" she asked.

"Huh?" he turned to her.

"That's what I'm getting from you right now, Pittsburgh, you're almost screaming it. What's up, who was one the phone?"

"Shit, my Uncle's wife dies and all I'm thinking about is having to fly. Man, am I messed." He shook his head at how skewed his priorities were. He suddenly wondered if his Aunt's death was what had been tugging in his head last night, though he had a hard time believing he'd pick up something like that from such a distance, especially about someone he'd only met once.

"Will's married?" She shook her head, "I mean, _was_ married?"

Boone explained the circumstances. Will had met and married a woman he'd only known for a short time about three years ago, though apparently he'd originally met her briefly in summer school when he was a teen. The rest of the family had been somewhat hesitant about his decision, but had all gone to the wedding at his invitation. Caroline had seemed somewhat careworn and jaded, but Will had appeared to be in love with her. They'd all spent a slightly stilted evening at the wedding reception, when Will had announced in the middle of it that he was relocating to Pittsburgh, Caroline's home town. Will Carlyle hadn't actually been without his own share of the family money, so many of them automatically assumed the worst, that she was simply a gold digger. Boone had chosen instead to give him the benefit of the doubt, and in fact Will seemed happier than he had in years, kicking his drinking habit, investing in Caroline's family's business and settling in. Boone had spoken with him on the telephone several times over the intervening years, and had been saddened when Will had told him about Caroline's cancer diagnosis.

"Of course we'll go." She reached out and slid her hand down his arm.

"Uh, Shan, uhm, I don't think that's a really good idea." He said hesitantly.

"But I just heard you say you'd be there." She was confused.

"Yeah, I said _I'd_ be there. They don't even we're together again. This is a pretty emotional time, I don't think showing up with my estranged wife, who's suddenly come back after six years would be really smart." He explained, cringing, waiting for her to snap.

"So, I'm supposed to stay here by myself? That's bullshit, I'm coming!" She rounded on him.

"Like it's all up to you! And why are you going to be by yourself? Andrew'll be here." He frowned.

"You aren't taking him?" she asked in shock.

"He's never even met the woman, and he's only seen Uncle Will maybe twice. Why would I drag him half way across the continent when he can stay home with you?"

"You mean you're leaving me to babysit?" she cried.

"Shan, I hate to break it to you, but it's not babysitting when it's your own son. Let's see…I think they call it…_life?_" he shot back.

"Boone, I don't know anything about taking care of a child, I was never even able to keep a _pet goldfish_ alive for more than a day!" she protested.

"Well then, I guess it's a good thing Andrew doesn't live in a bowl of water." He shouted in her face and shook his head. "I have to make flight reservations and pack. You're such a self centred bitch Shan. Fuck, grow the hell up," his earlier concern about catching shit from her quickly replaced by exasperation at her reaction. He headed downstairs to the office to book his on-line tickets.

Their yelling had, of course, woken Andrew, who stumbled groggily out of his bedroom. Finding Shannon sitting on the bed he'd asked her what their latest argument had been about. When she explained, he'd only commented that Boone was right about neither of them going before heading back to his room to shower.

She sat there trying not to think about the fact that she was panicking about being left alone for a few days with her own son. God, she thought, I _am_ self-centred.

Boone got back from downstairs and started packing, pulling a suit bag out of the closet and neatly rolling and placing items into a backpack. He informed her that he'd booked a seat on a plane for that afternoon.

She followed him into the bathroom where he opened the medicine cabinet and reached for a bottle of prescription pills.

"What _are_ those?" her eyes narrowed.

"I, uh, I don't fly well, these'll help." He looked a little chagrinned. His earlier anger had evaporated; he could never stay mad at her for long.

She held out her hand, but he curled his fist around the bottle, refusing her obvious request. "Shan, I really, really need these." Christ, he thought, I sound like a child begging for a popsicle at the grocery store.

"Give," she demanded, shoving her open palm at him.

He reluctantly put them in her hand. She glanced at the label, recognizing the name of an anti-anxiety medication, then stuck the bottle in her pocket. "You'll be fine."

"I won't, you don't know…" he started in a wheedling tone.

"Boone, shut up. I said," she reached behind her head to undo her necklace, "you'll be fine." She placed it around his neck, then took his hand and closed it around the cross suspended from the thin gold chain. Neither of them were religious, it was more the symbolism of the necklace itself that made it special. For her, it was not just a gift he'd given her, but the fact that it was a replacement for the one that had been her mothers', the one she'd worn every day from her mothers' funeral until the day she'd lost it on the island. For Boone, it was something he knew she cherished, something that was a little piece of her that she was sending with him.

He looked at her silently, the love he felt for her almost bringing him to tears.

"And if you lose it, I'll castrate you." She said seriously.

He shrugged off his overly melodramatic feelings. "Way to kill the moment, sis," he laughed.

"I'll miss you." She shifted gears on him again, suddenly looking all teary eyed.

"You are without a doubt the most exasperating woman I've ever been married to." He tried to keep up with how mercurial she was being.

"And you're the most annoying brother I've ever had." She slid her arms around his waist and buried her face against his shoulder lacing her arms behind his back and hugging him fiercely.

'Shan, I love you, God how I love you.' He hugged her back.

They all stood in the driveway. He'd already loaded his stuff in the trunk of the car and was ready to go, but the two of them kept finding excuses to delay his departure. She reached out and tucked the collar of his shirt _under_ the collar of his leather jacket, even though she'd only just smoothed it _over_ the jacket collar moments ago. "I'll only be gone a few days, you guys'll be fine." He reassured them for the tenth time.

Andrew kept wondering why they were drawing this out. His face had a quizzical look on it as he kept glancing from one of them to the other. Finally he'd had enough. "Okay you guys, he's only going to Pittsburgh for a few days, not going off to war. Just kiss and then, Boone, get in the car and leave already!"

Boone and Shannon both looked at him realizing how high school they were making it. "Don't let her get into any trouble." He asked his son.

"Got it covered, Dude, no sweat." He answered nonchalantly.

Boone turned one final time to her, "I'm on my cell. Just_, please_, remember to feed the goldfish."

She smiled, "The way I cook, I'm just hoping the goldfish remember to feed me." She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him.

"Bye guys, try not to kill each other." He slid behind the wheel, backed the car out of the driveway and drove away.

She looked down at the little boy standing beside her and knew she was totally out of her element.


	14. A Lesson in Parenting

Shannon felt adrift, completely lost without him. Though she thought she was the dominant one in the relationship, given how easy it was for her to manipulate him, she hadn't realized how much her world revolved around the sensitive, gentle man, she'd married. She'd never really admitted to herself how much she relied on him for everything. Boone gave her life focus, even when he was working or too busy to spend time with her, the knowledge that he was just down the hall or in the garage or wherever, gave her purpose. In his laid back, unassuming way, he really directed their lives more than she did. God I'm getting soft, she thought.

She gravitated out to the store, to see if Joan needed help, but the ever efficient woman seemed to be put off kilter by her intrusion, maybe feeling unsettled by the presence of the boss's wife. Shannon made an excuse and quickly left.

She wandered around the kitchen. Boone had left a casserole on the counter for dinner, the reheating instructions he'd quickly written down for her taped to the lid. He'd shown her the freezer full of meals he'd pre-prepared for those nights when he was too busy to make something from scratch, and had tried to explain the cooking instructions to her before giving it up as a bad job and simply telling her to ask Andrew. Great, cooking tips from a nine-year old, she thought, she really did expect the gold fish to feed her.

Shannon finally packed a few things in a beach bag, put on her bathing suit and wandered across the road to the lake. She swam out to the raft and pulled herself onto it, lying back to catch some sun. Andrew had gone over to Kevin's after Boone left, she was thankful that he was so self sufficient, maybe these few days wouldn't be as bad as she feared. She closed her eyes and dozed off as the warmth of the sun lulled her to sleep.

The raft canted abruptly, and as her head rolled to the side, she awoke. Shading her eyes with one hand, she saw Andrew climbing off the ladder. "I thought you went to Kevin's."

"Uh, Shan, that was like three hours ago." He stood beside her, the water dripping off him splashing on her irritatingly.

"Move." She bushed at the wetness as she lowered her hand and laid her head back. He continued to stand in exactly the same spot.

"What?" She demanded shading her eyes again.

"What about lunch?" he asked.

Shannon thought for a second. "I'll have some fruit and cheese and a couple of slices of that homemade bread." She lowered her hand and laid her head back again, but all he did was drop to the surface of the raft to sit cross-legged beside her.

"Has it always been like this for you?" he wondered.

"Like what?" she finally gave in and sat up.

"You just hold out your hand and, whatever you want, Boone just magically makes it appear for you. And before you get any crazy ideas, I'm not Boone, or your magician, I'm not going to do your bidding." He waited for her answer.

"Don't be ridiculous," she laughed uncomfortably. He just looked back at her, his too knowing adult gaze so incongruous in his nine-year old face.

She felt herself wilting under his stare, suddenly unable to meet his eyes. "I'll go make us some lunch." She started to push herself to her feet.

"No." he reached out to stop her. "This isn't about lunch. Tell me, honestly, why you're the way you are…at least about that. He's not here now, we have time, and I'd like to understand. You're my mom, please." He waited calmly for her answer.

She laughed sadly, and shook her head. "Okay short version though, because you've really reminded me that I'm hungry." Her gaze seemed to turn inward. Shannon took a deep breath. "My parents spoiled me, they didn't think they could have kids, so I was a pleasant surprise, they gave me everything. When my mother died, my dad spoiled me even more; it was guilt, I think, that I didn't have a mom anymore. When he married Sabrina, he upped it again, trying to compensate for how much your grandmother didn't like me. Then, when my dad died, Boone took over. There's more to it than that, of course, but that's the Cole's Notes. I just got used to it." She shrugged.

"He gives without even thinking about it, Boone I mean, it just comes naturally, he likes to feel needed. That must have made it so much easier for you to take advantage of him." Andrew observed.

"That's cruel to say I take advantage, maybe I capitalize on it a bit, but, like you said, he likes to feel needed, that's for sure." She sighed. "Enough psych 101 for now, let's go get some lunch, and I promise I'll try not to poison you."

He went upstairs to change out of his wet clothes. Coming down the back stairs to the kitchen he wondered where she was before hearing swearing coming from the back deck. He opened the door, she was cursing at the barbecue. "How the fuck do you turn this thing on?" he could hear the hissing of the gas, but the lid was down and the air was thick with the smell. He rushed forward just as she exclaimed, "Oh this must be it."

He batted her hand away from the ignition switch as he reached to twist the dial to off, and lifted the lid. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he yelled at her.

"Turning the fucking thing on." Shannon responded without thinking.

"You're going to blow us up, are you crazy? Jesus, keep you out of trouble, how about I keep you alive!" Andrew shook his head.

"There was nothing wrong with what I was doing." She turned on him.

She stood there, humiliated, as her nine-year old son explained the workings of a gas barbecue to her, including as an addendum, a brief description of what happened to frozen chicken when you put it on a setting high enough to nuke most small foreign nations.

"You stick to things in the fridge, it's not an appliance given to exploding; the _gold fish_ will handle the rest of it." He was not impressed. "This better not be an act, just so you get me to cater to you. How you managed six years on your own…" he shook his head and stomped into the house, taking the chicken with him.

Boone called later that night. "Hey, babe, I miss you. How're things going there?"

"Fine, great, couldn't be better." She lied.

Shannon heard him sigh, "Okay, so what could possibly have gone wrong already?"

"I kind of almost blew up the barbecue." She admitted.

The ensuing lecture took about five minutes; she stayed silent throughout, knowing she deserved every scathing word, even though she'd already heard most of it from their son that afternoon. Andrew had reheated the casserole for dinner, but had told her in no uncertain terms that he expected her to produce a salad, without supervision.

"Okay, so now that we've determined that I don't know how to barbecue, how did the flight go?" she questioned.

"I got here okay." Boone sounded falsely cheerful.

"But…" she prompted.

"I'm not sure, but I think I might have groped the woman I was sitting beside. When I woke up…" he started.

"Woke up! You fell _asleep_? It was the middle of the _afternoon_ for god's sake, and you're _terrified _of flying, how the hell did you fall asleep?" Shannon couldn't believe it.

"It might have been the three drinks I had before boarding." He admitted sheepishly.

"Boone, you're an idiot, you don't drink. What the hell were you thinking?" She demanded.

"I was thinking that some crazy lady took away my meds." He accused.

"You weren't supposed to substitute alcohol, shithead. So, now I'm married to a perv, what did you do to the woman?" she asked.

"Well, I woke up with my head on her shoulder, she was holding my hand and there was this really weird smile on her face. She kissed my cheek and said thanks when I got up to leave." She could hear his embarrassment over the phone and tried not to laugh.

"Should I be jealous?" Shannon teased.

"Only if you fear competition from women the same age as my mother, I was so horrified, I couldn't get off the plane fast enough." Boone replied.

They talked for a few minutes longer, Boone giving her the name and phone number of the hotel at which he was staying. The funeral was scheduled for the day after tomorrow, and he'd already booked a return flight for the day after that.

Great, she thought, two and a half more days of purgatory.

Heading down to the kitchen the next morning, Shannon suddenly decided she wanted to treat herself to a fancy coffee and pastry. She grabbed the keys for the van and headed out the back door. After a leisurely breakfast at a local café, she decided to stop at the grocery store for a few things. She'd been gone for maybe an hour and a half when she suddenly realized that not only did she not know where Andrew was, he had absolutely no idea where she was either. Leaving the cart in the middle of the aisle she left the store and drove home in a panic.

He was sitting forlornly on the back deck, his arms wrapped around his knees, his face hidden. She breathed a sigh of relief at seeing that he was safe. She approached him slowly, "Andrew?" she grimaced a little, waiting for his response.

He lifted his head, sniffling, his tear stained face contorted. "I was alone," he sobbed, suddenly only nine years old once again. "I woke up and no one was here, there was no note, nothing. Joan didn't know where you were. You left me alone. I was scared; I didn't know what happened to you." His shoulders started to shake, frightened misery was emanating from him in waves.

Oh fuck, Jesus fuck, I should be shot, she thought. Shannon gathered him in her arms, his sense of abandonment washing over her more strongly once she held him. "Honey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. Damn, I didn't think. Andy, please baby…" she started crying as well. They held each other until they both calmed down.

He pulled away from her; she wiped his tears away with her thumbs. "I'm a dreadful mother."

"Yes, you are. Unfortunately for us both, you're the only one I've got." Andrew forced a little smile.

She looked down at the deck for a minute before meeting his eyes. "I'll make you some breakfast." She offered, hopefully.

"Oh god no, it's not enough you scare the crap out of me, now you're going to try and poison me on top of it," he looked at her in mock horror.

Shannon stood and held her hand down to help him up. "Fruit, granola and yogurt, no actual cooking involved."

The rest of the morning passed, miraculously, without incident. A few hours after a breakfast, which proved to be non-toxic, he left for a friends' house.

Returning in the afternoon, he asked her if he could cut the lawn. "Knock yourself out." She responded, before stopping to think that maybe that wasn't the best choice of words.

She was standing at the kitchen window when she saw the ride on law mower pass by in the back yard. She went back to washing the dishes from breakfast when it passed by again going the other way. She lifted her head slowly, her eyes widening as she realized there hadn't been anybody on the thing either time it had gone by. She was out the back door in seconds.

Andrew was standing by the garage a look of helpless horror on his face as he watched the seemingly possessed machine careen wildly around the lawn, more or less describing slightly decreasing circles. She swept her eyes over the escalating devastation it was leaving in its' wake, before making her way over to him. She stood beside him with her hands on her hips shaking her head, "What have you done?" she demanded.

He couldn't tear his eyes away from the carnage. "Andrew Adam Carlyle, what the hell have you done?" she grabbed his arm and turned him to face her. His eyes were the size of saucers as he stared up at her.

"I thought I'd use the ride on, I figured if Boone made it look easy to use it couldn't be that hard. It jerked when I put in it gear and I fell off." He kept glancing at the raging machine.

She took a deep breath, trying to hide a smile at his slight dis of Boone. "Yeah, right. Why the hell's it still running with no one on it? Isn't there some kind of safety device, kill switch or something?"

"I, uh, I kind of disabled it." He winced.

"Soooo, you're smart enough to disable the safety device, but not smart enough to know that you shouldn't have in the first place? Smooth move." She stared at him flatly.

"Seems that way." He grimaced. "Shan, what're we going to do?" he wailed.

"Fuck if I know, I'm sure as hell not going to chase after the thing. It'll run into a tree eventually. I'm guessing from its' speed that you've got the throttle set at max." She couldn't believe that it was still speeding around the lawn considering it had already run into pretty much every piece of lawn furniture, _and _overturned a table.

"Yeah." He admitted. "Dad's going to kill me." He looked up at her.

"We'll tell him it was aliens, trying out a new site for crop circles." Just then the poor beleaguered machine crashed into one of the larger trees, bounced back a foot or so, then crashed forward again coming to a stop with its' engine revving and wheels churning ruts into the grass. Shannon rushed forward and turned the key off.

Andrew walked up to stand beside her as they surveyed the damage. "I think we're even." He offered, referring to her solo outing of that morning.

When Boone phoned that night she told him glibly that she'd gone for coffee in the morning and they'd done a bit of landscaping in the back yard in the afternoon, then she tried to deftly switch the conversation to what was going on in Pittsburgh. After wringing the truth out of her, he hung up and poured himself a drink.

Things weren't going well with Will, which was to be expected, after all the man had just lost his wife. He'd started drinking again, and had latched on to Boone like a drowning man clings to a piece of wreckage. The irony that he'd picked quite possibly the least emotionally strong person he could have wasn't lost on Boone. Boone had finally managed to escape from his Uncle and had fled to the sanctuary of his hotel room that night an emotional and physical wreck. He'd found some of his old prescription meds in the bottom of his travel bag, and had shaken some out in his palm and stared at them before forcing himself to flush them down the toilet. Shannon's news from home hadn't helped his self-confidence, but he didn't want to worry her, it sounded like she already had her hands full.

She waited for Andrew in the kitchen the next morning so they could have breakfast. They'd made supper together the night before, thawing and reheating one of Boone's containers of soup and adding some bread and salad, it almost seemed as if the disasters of the day had brought them closer.

After breakfast, Andrew asked if it was okay if he took his bike to Kevin's. Shannon ruffled his hair and sent him on his way, admonishing him to be careful.

She answered the knock on the back door at about two. There was a police officer standing there. "Are you Mrs. Carlyle?"

"Well, kind of, but not really no." She was never sure just how to answer that.

He raised his eyebrows, "Wow, usually we get that kind of evasive answer from questions like: have you been drinking? You care to elaborate?"

"I'm married to Mr. Carlyle, but my name's Rutherford." She explained.

"Okay then, I guess my real question is: do you know this boy?" he pulled Andrew out from behind him.

"He's my son." She admitted with a sigh. "What's he done?"

"He was riding his dirt bike on the streets." He informed her.

"Oookay," she frowned not understanding.

"That's illegal." The officer prompted.

"Right, yes, of course it is." She smiled and nodded, feeling like a complete idiot.

"I'll let him off with just a warning this time. Please Mrs. Rutherford, keep a eye on him." He pushed Andrew forward into the house. "Afternoon ma'm," He turned and left.

She looked down at him and tried to hide her smile, "Brought home by the cops and only nine. I'm impressed; I think I was at least fourteen before that happened. You're positively putting me to shame, I should have tried harder."

"I _asked_ you if I could take my bike to Kevin's." he protested.

"Nice try. Way to pull the bait and switch, get me to agree to something without giving me quite the whole story." She looked at the clock, twenty-four hours and counting, please god let us get through it.

All she'd told Boone that night was that Andrew had been practicing his dirt bike riding skills and that all meals gone without grievous injury. He didn't bother asking what it was she wasn't telling him, not sure he could take it. He was seriously beginning to regret flushing the pills the night before.

They were both standing in the driveway when he pulled in early the next afternoon. He'd been so exhausted that he'd gotten on the plane without even thinking about it. The landing had been rough though, and he'd found himself with her necklace clenched in his fist, his eyes squeezed shut, his other hand in a death grip on the armrest. Boone wearily climbed out of the car, and looked at them with a frown. They each had false smiles painted on their faces and their hands behind their backs.

"Oh god, guys, what, just what?" he closed his eyes and squeezed his brows together; his shoulders slumped as he waited to hear about the latest debacle.

"Well…" Andrew pulled a twisted bicycle tire out from behind his back. "I, uh, I kind of left my bike lying on the driveway."

"And…" Shannon brought her hand forward to reveal a broken side mirror from the van. "It startled me when I ran over it, so I swerved too close to the side of the garage door opening.

Boone dropped his head to his hands, not sure whether to laugh or cry.


	15. A Visit to Claire

Boone was very withdrawn for several days after returning home. Andrew and Shannon were both overwrought with concern about him, casting glances at each other and guiltily carrying on silent conversations, sharing their worry. He quietly and efficiently had everything replaced and repaired as needed, not rebuking either one of them. They sensed his disappointment in them, but he never voiced it. He rarely spoke, seeming lost in his thoughts. Any thought of intimacy was pointless, he sent her to bed alone, sitting up by himself well into the night, and getting up before she awoke in the morning. She actually considered that he never came to bed at all, after rousing herself from sleep at odd hours and realizing that she was still alone. She searched for him with her thoughts, locating him in the kitchen, wandering down there once, she found him sitting at the table, a cup of tea in front of him. He only smiled distractedly at her and told her to go back to bed. Boone kept his thoughts carefully blocked from both of them, and seemed completely oblivious to the anxiety he was causing them. Shannon had considered reading him while he was sleeping, when she could actually catch him doing _that_, but even _she_ couldn't bring herself to cross that moral barrier and invade his privacy so cruelly. Andrew had cried when Boone had given him his new bicycle, uncharacteristically calling him 'daddy' when thanking him, but Boone hadn't even noticed, he just smiled in an offhanded manner before moving on to the next task.

Shannon had gone to bed on the third night after finally deciding to confront him the next day. When she woke up in morning, she was surprised to find him still in the bed beside her. He was lying flat on his back staring at the ceiling. "Hey," she greeted him softly, propping her head up on her elbow.

He flicked his gaze briefly in her direction, and smiled faintly. Boone seemed to come to some kind of decision and spoke. "Shannon," he paused to consider his words, "did you ever _want_ kids? We've never even talked about it, because, really, we didn't have a choice, it was pointless, you were already pregnant when we crashed, and three months gone before I even knew of it. I know when we were growing up we'd be somewhere together and some kid would start squalling and you'd say, "I'm never having kids," and then the next day you'd contradict yourself saying, "When I have kids I'm having two, a daughter just like me, and a son, nothing like you." He breathed a small laugh at the memory. "But I never asked you what you really wanted."

"This is about me leaving him that morning isn't it?" She realized that this was what he'd been thinking about for the last three days.

"Partly," he rolled his head to the side to look at her. "Answer me." He bit his bottom lip, waiting for her reply.

Shannon closed her eyes as she admitted, "No."

"I didn't think so. But now you've got one." He stated.

"And I love him, Boone, I do. I was stupid that day, and, god help me, it won't happen again." She assured him.

"No, it won't." he shook his head.

Her eyes widened as she got his deeper meaning. "You're not going to leave me alone with him again, are you?"

"I can't Shan. Nothing bad happened to him _this_ time, but what about next time?" he looked resigned. "I can't take the chance. It's my own fault, really. You were pretty clear about not feeling you were prepared to take care of him. I guess I just wasn't listening, or thought you were just trying to get out of it, I should have taken you seriously."

"Are…are you going to ask me to…" she felt the tears form, "leave?"

"No, _I_ need you here, you know how _much_ I love you, god help me, though I did, briefly, consider it," he went back to staring at the ceiling. "And," he shrugged, "I don't know, in a way I think you're good for him. You seem to bring out his 'inner Shannon.' The shit he pulled with just the two of you here, he'd never even have considered if I was around, I think it's good for him to let loose a bit and be just a nine-year old boy, instead of the intense and serious child _I _was."

A sob escaped her, though she still managed to keep herself from actually crying, he sounded so broken again.

Boone looked back at her, "I'm not a strong man, you know that, Shannon. The responsibility I've had to shoulder alone, I thought I could share when you came back. But it doesn't look like I can; I've been wrestling with that, among other things, over the last few days. I know I've put you guys through hell, but I didn't know how else to deal with it. I needed to work it through."

She was still near tears, struggling with how badly she'd let him down, disappointing him to such an incredible degree. It wasn't just his words that were upsetting her; it was his tone, so defeated, so resigned to settling for so much less than he'd hoped for.

She suddenly started to look at it from a different angle, as something occurred to her, a spark suddenly igniting inside her.

"You should have talked to me. You can't decide three peoples' futures all on your own. Since when is it all up to you? Christ Boone, for once I think you've managed to pull off selfish, I'd never have thought it of you." Shannon sat up, crossing her legs, and faced him. "How about the whole '_We're_ his parents,' speech you made me listen to. This time I think _you've_ forgotten the 'we' part. Yeah, I fucked up, _big_ time, but I'm new at this. Just because I didn't think I wanted kids when I was growing up doesn't mean that I'm not devoted to the one I've got. Have you even bothered to ask either of us what _we_ want? Do you _know_ how close we became while you were gone? My idea of parenting may be different than yours, and my relationship with him so far out of left field it'd make child psychologists run for the liquor cabinet." She paused to laugh, "I actually gave him props for being brought home by the cops, but he's my son, and I'm his mom and we're both cool with that. You have no idea how the rest of the day I forgot him went, well except for the whole lawn mower thing. We made dinner together, we played cards," now she started crying. "We fell asleep on the couch together, watching some shitty movie." She covered her face with her hands sobbing without restraint. "He told me he loved me." She forced the words out, her breath hitching at her attempt.

He sat up and gathered her into his arms. How could I have been so stupid, he wondered? He held her until her crying subsided, stroking her hair and rocking back and forth, shushing her quietly. She pulled back and looked at him, "I'm not some empty headed twenty-year old princess any more, Boone. You need to talk to me, I'm an adult too."

"You're amazing, you know that? And once again I'm an idiot. I'm so used to handling everything on my own, here I am complaining that I can't share responsibility with you, then I go and shut you out." Boone shook his head.

The melancholy look had left his eyes, she noted. "Can we talk now?" she asked. He nodded…and so they did.

Things were better after that. Boone perked up and paid attention, and the three of them did more things together as a family. Boone watched how she was with Andrew, more his friend than a parent, but the boy still seemed to respect her and listened to her when she gave him guidance, almost as if she was his mentor, or one of the cool kids at school. For serious things Andrew came directly to him, for fun stuff, he went to Shannon. They tried their best to co-ordinate how they were dealing with him, and for the most part, it worked.

Claire called at the beginning of August remembering her promise to Andrew that he could come and spend a week. They were headed for the city now, a backpack strapped onto the luggage rack of each bike. Pulling up in front of the Pace residence, Andrew squirmed off Boone's bike before he even had it turned off, taking off his helmet and thrusting it at his father, he ran up the front steps. Just as he was about to ring the bell, the door flew open.

"Back soon luv," Charlie was looking back over his shoulder and almost ran the boy over in his haste. "Andrew." He frowned before remembering. "You're coming for the week aren't you?" he grinned, seeming proud of himself for recalling that fact.

"Yeah, Charlie, where's Aaron?" Andrew asked.

"Uh, back yard, yeah, back yard, with Sarah." He was clearly preoccupied. Andrew darted past him.

"Charlie." Boone greeted.

"Mate, good to see you," Charlie pulled him into a hug, clapping him on the back. He looked over Boone's shoulder at Shannon.

"Shannon." He stepped back from Boone, but didn't offer her a hug.

"Charlie." She smiled tentatively.

"Well, yeah, so I've got this thing, and I have to go, I'm late really, it's a record label thing, got to dash, maybe you'll be here when I get back…sorry." He rushed past them, got in his car, and drove away.

"He never changes." Shannon observed. "Claire must have the patience of a saint."

"And then some," came the reply from the inside the door.

They turned; Claire was standing in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest, shaking her head at her husband's abrupt departure.

"Boone." She held her arms open and hugged him to her, resting her head on his shoulder. He seemed to sag into her as he slid his arms around her. They remained that way for several seconds. When he moved to pull away she tightened her grip for a second before letting him go. She smiled up at him, 'I need to talk to you later, it's all good,' she laid the words at the front of her mind for him to read. He nodded.

"Shannon." Claire greeted, hugging her as well. Shannon was shocked, after their last phone conversation the last thing she expected was a warm greeting from Claire.

Claire regarded Boone, appraising him. "You look good. I see you've put on some weight finally.' She turned back to Shannon. "Your being back I guess, though I _know_ his extra weight's not from any attempt by you at cooking, so it must be that he's happy."

They followed her into the house, dropping Andrews' things in the front hall, ending up in the kitchen. Claire opened the fridge door and handed Boone a beer. "Shannon, what can I get for you?"

"A glass of white wine would be great, thanks." She was still trying to figure out why Claire was being so nice to her.

Claire got two glasses from the cupboard, poured and handed one to Shannon. Claire smiled before asking, "You mind if I talk to your brother alone?" Though it was completely incongruous, all of their tightly knit group of survivors had continued to refer to them as brother and sister while still accepting them as a couple, once the true nature of their relationship had been explained.

Shannon shrugged in assent, and Claire led Boone out the back door, Shannon watched while she pulled a lawn chair up in front of him, their knees were touching as she reached out to grasp his hands in hers. He leaned in; their foreheads close together as they talked.

She felt uncomfortable watching them, and so wandered off to explore the house. They'd moved since she'd left so she'd never seen this place. Claire's touches were everywhere, there were Chinese symbols in the paintings on the walls, in the tchotchkes on the tables, there were mandalas in tapestries and, in the den, there was a painting sitting on the floor propped up against the wall. She experienced a feeling of familiarity. It was huge, a full sized picture of an ocean view from the perspective of a beach, the blue of the water meshing with the blue of the sky on the horizon, fluffy white clouds floated overhead, she recognized Michael's signature in the lower right hand corner, and reminisced to herself about the island for bit.

"Shannon," she heard Boone call, and made her way back to the kitchen. He smiled at her as if something subtle had changed; she narrowed her eyes, but didn't think that this was the time to pursue it.

"You want the fifty-cent tour?" Claire asked her.

"I kind of looked around on my own," she shrugged a little embarrassed. "There's a painting in the den, one of Michaels', it made me feel…"

"Kind of homesick." They both said in unison, then looked at each other and laughed at the unintentional echoing of each others' words.

She smiled at them, "Yeah, crazy isn't it?"

Claire looked at Boone, reaching up to lay a hand on his cheek. "No, it's not crazy; it makes me feel the same way."

"Not crazy at all, not all the island memories are bad," he agreed, brushing the back of his hand over her face. She closed her eyes and leaned into it.

"You guys want to get a room?" she looked at them suspiciously, her eyebrows furrowed. Boone wouldn't, would he? No, he said he'd had no sexual partners but her. And Claire, no way, that was just absurd.

Neither of them seemed the slightest bit embarrassed by their display of affection. Shannon realized how stupid her musing was, if there were something more than friendship between them, would they honestly have shown it so blatantly in front of her?

Boone laughed, "Sorry hon, I was just remembering. Claire helped me through some bad stuff, some of the worst stuff. In some ways we're closer to brother and sister than you and I ever were. I almost feel I owe her my life," he explained.

"And I feel that I owe you Aaron's, it was a debt well paid." Claire squeezed his arm. "I still see a lot more of _you_ in him, than Thomas, his personality, I mean."

Shannon suddenly remembered what else had happened the night he died, and recalled the odd nature of the bond he shared with the small blonde Australian woman, and her son. He'd told _her _about it years ago, how he'd felt as if a part of him had torn loose and flowed into the child, and, guessing from Claire's comment, he'd also discussed what he'd experienced with her. Even before she left, they'd always been close; it had obviously been intensified by the significance of the support Claire had given him during his breakdown.

"I'd like to see him before we go, Sarah too, of course." He picked up his beer, sipping at it. "You got his whole 'island ability thing' under control any better?"

"Yeah, it's been months since he turned to some poor soul at the supermarket and told them what was going to happen to them next week." She laughed. "Poor Sarah and Charlie, half the time they don't know what to make of us. Sarah calls the two of them muggles."

When they both shrugged and shook their heads at the reference, she explained. "It's a Harry Potter thing, non-magical people are muggles. She's just recently discovered the books, so we read them together at night. I always loved Harry Potter, so it's no hardship, actually it's fun revisiting that whole world through her eyes."

"Maybe I should read with Andrew at night." Shannon bit the inside of her lip to keep from grinning and watched for Boone's reaction.

"Yeah, I'm sure he'd love Cosmo and Glamour, Shan." He raised his eyebrows at her as he smirked.

After visiting with Claire and her children for the rest of the afternoon, they kissed Andrew goodbye and headed the bikes for home, stopping for gas a few miles down the road. After he got back from paying she turned to him. "Claire was awfully nice to me, considering what she had to say the last time we talked. You want to enlighten me? What did she tell you in the backyard, care to fill me in?"

"Just what she thought my future held in store, she got a read on me when we first got there. What she said was all good, I don't want to go into it, but she feels good about you coming back. That's why her change in attitude." Boone didn't add that what she had told him filled him with such hope, that he was irrationally afraid to believe her. "Come on, let's get home, I want to start showing you some things on the computer tomorrow, I think it's time to share some of the responsibility for the business with you, after all half of it's yours. I want us to get a good night's sleep tonight."

"We've got the house to ourselves again," Shannon grinned at him. "So I hope sleep isn't the only thing you're planning on getting tonight." He blushed red, looking toward the open window of the car parked at the adjoining pump. The woman in the passenger seat had obviously overheard and was trying to hide her smile.

He couldn't get his bike back on the road fast enough.


	16. A Weekend in the City

Shannon had picked up a summer cold from somewhere, both Boone and Andrew tried to steer clear of her, but, especially for Boone, it was proving impossible. She was making his life a living hell. He tried, as he always had, to make things right for her, making her homemade chicken soup, fetching cups of tea up to the bedroom where she lay under the covers with a box of tissues by her side, fluffing her pillows, but her demands were endless, and he never seemed to be able to respond to them quite to her satisfaction. For the first time in years, he found himself thinking about Theresa, and regretted, again, the demands he'd made on her. He even offered to sleep in the guest room, but Shannon acidly reminded him of the week she'd spent sitting at his bedside when he'd been in the hospital, so he obediently climbed carefully into bed beside her each night, not wanting to trigger another of her coughing jags. Miraculously, neither of them caught whatever malady it was that she was suffering from. After almost a week, she finally seemed to be on the mend.

He tentatively approached her on one of her first good days, "Shan, uh, school starts in two weeks, and I really need to get Andrew some new clothes. I, uh, I thought that, maybe, we could all go into the city for the weekend?" He verbally tiptoed around her, worn out from having to put up with her irritability for the past week. Didn't people who were sick usually want to be left alone? He knew he certainly did, but of course, as usual, Shannon was the exception to the rule.

She sniffed, "Why the fuck do you look like a frightened rabbit? Jesus, Boone." She frowned in irritation.

"Right, okay then, we're _going_ into the city this coming weekend, and we're going to get him some new school clothes." He said decisively.

"And it's your birthday too, isn't it? How convenient." She sniffed again.

"Do you want a tissue?" he was already reaching for the box.

"If I wanted a tissue I'd fucking get one for myself, Christ." She looked annoyed.

"Yeah, my mistake, sorry." He apologized. "It _is_ my birthday, but Shan, I'm gonna be thirty-two, it's not a big deal, though I did think that maybe you might like to go out for dinner, and maybe to a club." He looked hopeful, then rushed on, "And I thought we'd get you a car. Actually, I've already ordered it, it'll be ready on Saturday."

She smiled and tilted her head in pleasure, "It's your birthday, but _I'm_ getting a car, I like that idea. Your birthday should come more often."

They headed into the city on Friday afternoon, and on Saturday morning they picked up her new car. The small two-seater sports car he'd picked out for her was almost identical to the one he'd once bought for her. She smiled in appreciation and then slid behind the wheel, Andrew ran to climb into the passenger seat before she could drive off. She peeled out of the parking lot, squealing the tires as she raced towards the hotel.

"Mr. Carlyle, your wife does understand that she shouldn't drive the car too hard before it's broken in, right?" The salesman watched in horror as Shannon sped away.

"I'm sure she understands, just as much as I'm sure she doesn't care." Boone patted the guy on the shoulder.

They spent the rest of Saturday shopping for clothes. Andrew and Shannon positively glowed with enjoyment as they moved from store to store, Shannon getting almost as many things for herself as for Andrew. Boone followed along behind them, dutifully carrying an increasingly larger number of bags, pulling out his credit card time and again, making frequent trips to his car to stuff the bags into the trunk, and wishing silently that the ground would open and swallow him; putting him out of his misery. When they stopped for lunch he had two beers and massaged his temples in a vain attempt to rid himself of the headache that had started pounding after the third hour of the buying frenzy.

Mid afternoon his cell rang as he was standing outside of the latest place they'd picked for pillaging. He groaned when he recognized his mothers' number, though he'd known that there was no way he wasn't going to hear from her that day. "Hello, mother," he greeted, falsely cheerful.

'Happy birthday, Boone, dear," Sabrina sounded equally as forced.

"Thanks," He looked up to see Shannon beckoning him from the checkout inside the store. His shoulders slumped. 'Yeah, happy birthday, god let this day end,' he wished.

"Where are you? You sound tired." She pretended concern.

"We're shopping," he provided their activity, but not their location, refraining from telling her that they were less than five minutes from her office, not feeling like he had the energy reserves left to endure a face to face with her.

"Of course, Gerald," he heard her say, and, in his fatigued state, Boone was momentarily confused as to why she was calling him Gerald, before he realized that she must have been speaking to someone who had come in to her office. That was confirmed with her next words. "Got to go, dear, Gerald's just come in with a crisis." He took the phone away from his ear and stared at it, as he realized she hadn't even bothered to say goodbye. 'Happy birthday,' he thought again, sarcastically.

"Boone?" Andrew tugged on his t-shirt; he looked down, "Shannon says to get your ass inside." Boone glanced back at the store. She was still standing at the checkout, glaring at him, her arms crossed in front of her, looking none too pleased at the fact that he was keeping her waiting.

Back at the hotel, he pulled another beer out of the mini bar and locked himself in the bathroom, while Shannon and Andrew went through the days' purchases. He soaked in the whirlpool, nursing the beer for as long as he could, the pounding on the door, and the summons to come out and survey what they'd bought, happening after a surprisingly long half-hour, he'd anticipated that he'd get no more than a fifteen minute respite. Boone wrapped a towel around his waist and opened the door. The room was in chaos; it looked like several dozen suitcases had thrown up. There were clothes, and discarded packaging, on the floor, the bed, the chairs, everywhere. He hadn't realized exactly how much they'd actually bought over the course of the day.

He finally reached the end of his patience and snapped, "Clean up this mess." The other two went still. "This is disgraceful, who the hell do you think are you? Jesus, Shan, we didn't even engage in this much excess after we were _rescued_. Just because you _can _buy this much stuff, doesn't mean you have any _right_ to. Andrew, I thought I raised you better. God, you guys…" He shook his head in disgust, turned and went back in the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

About ten minutes later, he heard a tentative tapping on the door, "Boone?" Shannon called. He continued to sit quietly on the edge of the vanity, dressed, once again, in his original clothes. "We tidied up."

He got up and opened the door for her. The room had been restored to its' original condition, he flicked a glance at her, then at Andrew, who stood, looking uncertain, by the bed.

"I'm sorry, guys, long day, but you've got to admit you went more than a bit overboard." He attempted to make peace with them both.

They both apologized to him. He accepted, then pointed out that they had dinner reservations in less than an hour. Andrew begged off, pleading fatigue after the activity of the day, asking instead if he could just stay at the hotel and order room service. Secretly, he just wanted them to have the evening alone together. Boone got the manager on the phone, a man he knew his mother's company dealt with on a regular basis, and arranged for a sitter. Before they left, Andrew handed him a small package, wishing him happy birthday. Boone unwrapped it to reveal a book on Mexican cooking. It wasn't a recipe book, but an historical one, written by a food anthropologist. They'd seen the woman interviewed about it on TV a few weeks before, and he'd mentioned he'd like to read it. He thanked Andrew and hugged him.

They walked to the restaurant, then enjoyed a leisurely meal, indulging themselves outrageously by carrying on their entire dinner conversation silently. Boone was sure that the wait staff must have thought them insane, as they sat for over two hours, not saying a word to each other, just gesturing and smiling as they communicated in their heads. At one point they elicited some pretty strange looks as Shannon suddenly burst out laughing over something he'd thought. Over liqueurs, Shannon pulled a small, sloppily wrapped, item out of the pocket of her leather jacket and handed it to him. He opened it to reveal an enameled medallion on a thin leather thong; he held it in his palm immediately recognizing the Chinese characters for the number eighty-four. 'My t-shirt, at least the one I found to wear.' He remembered one of his favourite shirts from the island. 'Thanks, sis.'

'Happy birthday, honey.' Shannon wished him, as he slipped it over his head and tucked in into his shirt.

They caught a cab to a club after dinner, continuing their silent communication, their ability an overwhelming advantage as the pulsing of the music made normal conversation impossible. They headed immediately for the middle of the dance floor. Shannon thought Boone looked increasingly sexier as the evening progressed and he undid several buttons on his shirt. His hair was plastered to his forehead; he was obviously enjoying himself immensely. As he grinned like an idiot at her, suddenly the last ten years disappeared from his face, and she saw the innocent, naive twenty-two year old who'd come to her fabricated rescue in Sydney. How could he still love her as much as he did after all the shit she'd put him through? He sensed that something had changed and stopped dancing, his smile fading. 'Shan?'

'Nothing,' she shook her head. 'Memories, that's all. I love you Boone.' She kissed him.

The mood for dancing lost; they moved to the bar and got a couple of drinks. She excused herself after the first one.

She came back from the bathroom to find a young guy talking to him. The man had a hand on Boone's shoulder; she could see Boone leaning in trying to hear what the other man was saying. She watched while the guys' hand started to slide, slowly, from Boone's shoulder and down his back. Before it actually got to his ass, she stepped forward to reclaim him, pushing between them. "This one's mine, fuck off." The guy shrugged in concession, and moved off to find another conquest.

The time approaching two a.m., they left to find a cab.

They were still discussing the incident when Boone used his key card to let them back into their suite. "I don't think he was, Shan."

"God, Boone, you're a dolt, he was totally coming on to you." She pushed passed him. "You're a complete gay magnet."

The woman the hotel had sent up in response to his request for a baby sitter had risen from a chair in front of the TV when the door opened. She turned to them now, frowning.

Boone was immediately concerned, "Hi, is everything okay, is Andrew alright?"

"The poor boy is fine." She gave him a quick up and down, a sour look on her face like he'd just climbed out of a dumpster and smelled like last weeks' rotting leftovers.

"Uh, okay," he was confused, but reached for his wallet and extracted a few bills, then held them out to her.

She snatched the money out of his hand, "You people are disgusting," she spat. "That the dear boy isn't deformed or scarred for life is amazing." She glanced in distaste from one of them to the other; then stormed from the suite.

He turned to Shannon, "What…I don't…did she…what the fuck just happened?" He threw his hands in the air.

Shannon didn't know which was funnier, the look on Boone's face, or what the woman had said. "I'm guessing that she baby sat _my son_, not yours, and brother dear, from what she said, I'm guessing he played the whole incest card." She dissolved into laughter as he changed from appearing confused to horrified.

"Oh god," he closed his eyes. "Remind me of the whole part where I said that maybe you were good for him."

Her laughter was contagious, and soon he was chuckling as well, as he removed his leather jacket, hanging it carefully in the closet. "I'm going to check on the junior troublemaker." He opened the door to the connecting room cautiously, the light from their room falling across the bed. He was lying on his back, breathing deeply, regularly; he had the sheet twisted up in his legs. Andrew had started wearing his hair longer, and his bangs were caught in his eyelashes and stuck to his cheeks, he looked so innocent, Boone couldn't believe the trial he'd put the baby sitter through.

Shannon slipped her arms around him as she moved to stand behind him, both of them watching the small sleeping figure. 'Come on before we wake him.' She urged silently. Boone pulled one of the blankets over their son and followed her out of the room, closing the door softly.

"Drink?" she asked, gesturing at the mini bar.

He shook his head, heading for the balcony, pulling the blankets off the bed, and tugging them loose. He grabbed her hand on the way by, then opened the sliding door. He threw the covers down on the concrete and then turned to her. He took his time slowly undressing her, whispering in her ear as he did, his breath hot and seductive on her skin, his words driving her wild. He pushed her hands away every time she reached for him. By the time he had her naked, she could barely stand. He guided her to lie on the padded surface of the balcony then quickly shed his own clothes, kneeling and gently lowering himself on to her. Shannon dug her nails into his back, trying to pull him into her, but he continued to tease, rubbing himself against her, continuing his monologue, his mouth brushing against her ear. She thrust her hips repeatedly against him, begging for him. He pulled back to look in her face, she had tears of frustration in the corners of her closed eyes, 'Please Boone, please,' she pleaded wordlessly. He finally slid inside her, unable to resist any longer. When they came it was fierce and uncontrolled, she moaned his name into the night, as he groaned against her neck.

He finally recovered enough to realize that he had his entire weight resting on her chest, he levered himself up on his elbows and gazed at her. Her eyes were still closed, her mouth open slightly. As he watched, she opened her eyes slowly, her tongue sliding out to wet her lips. She half smiled, 'Happy birthday to you.'

'Yeah, happy birthday to me.' He smiled and dropped his head to her shoulder.


	17. Summer's Over

Shannon came in the back door, breathing heavily, her face shiny with perspiration. Boone turned from the counter, retrieved the towel he'd draped over the back of one of kitchen chairs while she was out running, and handed it to her. She took it with a quick smile of thanks and mopped her face with it. Reaching behind herself she pulled a thin plastic box out of the waistband of her shorts and handed it to him.

He took the DVD case gingerly, holding the corner between his thumb and forefinger, the side that had been against her back was slick with her sweat. He was about to reach for a corner of her towel, then thought better of it as she shot him a look of warning, and wiped it on his pant leg instead He looked at the title in confusion. "I'm supposed to know _what_ this is, and don't bother saying 'It's a DVD you idiot.' Wait…where the hell did you get this, where've you been?"

She tried to answer, but, still out of breath, gave up. 'Garage sale,' she checked the water bottle at her waist, and, finding it empty, pulled open the fridge for a fresh one.

"Huh," He frowned at her; sure he'd gotten it wrong, "garage sale? _Shannon Rutherford _went to a garage sale?" He was incredulous. "Hold on_, did_ I miss the news flash, _did_ hell freeze over?"

'Piss off.' She was well on the way to draining the bottle.

"Nice come back, you're losing your touch." He answered.

'So sue me, I'm tired and thirsty.' She finished the water and put the bottle on the counter.

"Okay, tired of sounding like I'm talking to myself here, like some lunatic, do you _think_ you could actually _speak_ to me?"

She looked over his shoulder as if someone was standing there, reaching out to pat his arm with one hand, while holding the other beside her head and circling her finger beside her ear, she said "Day pass only, I'm taking him back to the home at four."

"Not funny, Shan." Her joke hit a little too close to home for his liking, he glared at her.

"Christ Boone! Get over yourself." She pulled out a chair and sat at the table.

He joined her. Looking again at the plastic box in his hand, he asked. "So what's the deal with this?"

"I wanted a break so I stopped. I don't know what made me go through the vid's they had on sale." She shrugged. "I saw that one, and it was only two dollars, so I picked it up. It's a TV show I remember watching years ago. I think I was fifteen, maybe sixteen."

Boone looked a little doubtfully at the cover; it looked pretty juvenile to him. Shannon held out her hand and demanded: "Give."

"Please," he said automatically. When she rolled her eyes, he slid it across the table to her, shaking his head. "I remember there's a guy in it I thought looked just like you." She looked at the front of the box. "Here's his picture, what do you think?" She looked up to hand it back to him, but he'd already gotten up and turned back to the counter.

"What're you making?" she put the box back down.

"Your lunch, but I'm thinking I didn't add enough arsenic." Boone was still a little pissed at her.

"Arsenic, huh? Is that because I wouldn't eat the poisonous mushrooms?" She mused.

"And here I thought I'd hidden them so well in the pasta primavera. I guess the pink spots gave them away." He answered in a serious tone.

"No, it was when I gave one to the cat and it keeled over dead." Shannon nodded her head as if recalling a real memory.

"We don't have a cat." He pointed out.

"Not anymore." She laughed.

He slid a plate of Salad Nicoise in front of her, a freshly grilled tuna steak in the centre. "That's just what I wanted!" She exclaimed in appreciation. "What did you do read…?" she stopped when she realized the stupidity of what she was about to say.

"Your mind? Yeah," Boone flicked his index finger against her skull, "what there _is_ of it in there."

Shannon watched while he dumped a loaf of homemade bread out of a pan onto a cutting board. He sawed off both ends, and, knowing the crust was her favourite, handed them to her, then turned back to the board and cut two more pieces for himself. She bit into the crunchy goodness, smiling. He moved to stand behind her and pulled her ponytail half way through one of the loops of elastic, lifting it away so the air could circulate against her slightly sweaty skin. He bent down and blew cool air across the back of her neck causing her to shiver, "Again." She demanded.

"Of course, princess," he blew again, before getting her another bottle of water from the fridge, and one for himself. He put his plate on the table in front of the chair he'd vacated, added the two slices of bread and sat down again.

"Where's Andrew?" she questioned.

"Kevin's," he provided. "But I told him to be back well before dinner. I want him to be well rested for tomorrow, what with it being the first day of school. He ate while you were out, but I wanted to wait for you. Though given your pathetic attempt at humour earlier, I'm beginning to wonder why."

They ate in companiable silence. "You aren't actually planning on making me watch that with you are you?" Boone indicated the box.

"No, I'm not going to _make_ you. You're going to do it because you love me." She said it with a smug air of complete confidence.

"Not enough arsenic, definitely not enough arsenic." He muttered, rising to clear the plates.

The late afternoon found them in the den, the TV on, the DVD loading. Boone had made her a bowl of popcorn, which she'd placed on the cushion beside her. It was on the side away from him, he noticed in irritation. The show started with an overview of a small town, and a voice over giving a monologue. Boone tried to pay attention, but he kept zoning out. God this sucks, he thought. Andrew came in just after it started.

"What are you guys watching?" he asked.

"Some self indulgent crap from your mothers' childhood," Boone responded, getting an elbow in the ribs in retaliation.

"Okay." The boy sat. "Does stuff blow up?"

"No." Shannon answered.

"Do people kiss?" he asked with a grimace.

"Yeah," she smiled.

"I'll give it five minutes." He allowed, shrugging.

Part way into the show, Boone started laughing. "Did he just say his name was Scout? What the hell? Does he have a brother, Rover and a sister, Spot?"

"Shut up." She elbowed him again; he poked her back. They started arguing, not paying any attention to what was happening on the screen, until Andrew shushed them.

"Okay, here's a part with the guy I thought looked like you." She nodded her head at the TV.

He watched with a skeptical look on his face as two of the characters acted out a scene on a rooftop. "No way, Jesus, I don't look like that…what were you thinking? Is he actually peeing on the roof? And what's wrong with his hair, is it greasy or just wet?"

"It looks different in most of the rest of episode, pay attention, he'll be on again." She defended herself.

A little later he burst out again. "Ham? His name is Ham? Does his sister Bacon go out with the Scout guys' brother Rover?"

"I don't think so _Boone_. And by the way, _Boone_ isn't that a little like the pot calling the kettle black? Or is _Boone_ a name you'd normally find at the top of a new mothers' list of baby names?" Shannon asked sarcastically.

"I've always really liked my name." he answered defensively, "I think it's kind of soap opera-ish, Boone Andrew Carlyle, wedding planner to the stars." He struck a bit of a pose in jest.

Shannon and Andrew looked at him like an alien spaceship had landed in the back yard disgorging him; they exchanged glances with each other. 'He's crazy,' Andrew thought at her.

'Certifiable,' she agreed, careful not to let Boone know, given his reaction to her joke earlier.

"Actually I'm just glad my mothers' maiden name wasn't Smith or Jones or, god forbid, Sawyer." Boone was mercifully unaware of their silent assessment.

He sat through the rest of the first, and most of the second, episode. Finally he'd had more than enough. Fuck this shit, he thought to himself, rising from the couch. "Enjoy your blast from the past."

Halfway down the hall he realized he had the DVD box in his hand, and turned to go back to the den. He looked through the open door. Andrew had moved to occupy the spot he'd vacated on the couch. Shannon had moved the bowl of popcorn so that it was on the cushions between them; they were both laughing and pointing at something on the screen. Andrew made a comment, when she turned to him to answer, she saw, over Andrews' head, that Boone was watching them. She gave him a quick spontaneous smile and turned back to the TV.

Boone looked down at the box he was holding, studying the pictures of the actors. Yeah, he had to admit, that one guy did bear more than just a passing resemblance. The tag line for the show was emblazoned on the cover, under the title: Young Americans. It read, "Everyone has a summer they'll never forget…" While that summer of six years ago, when she'd left him and he'd disintegrated, would never, ever be something he'd be able to completely leave behind, the past summer was slowly overlaying it, blurring the edges, taking the harshness out of the darkness of the abyss into which he'd plunged after her departure.

He felt better than he had in years, wondering if he'd even recognize the man he'd been before she'd reappeared a little over two and a half months ago. He'd been so beaten, just existing, not really living at all. He knew he still had a long way to go, there were still times when he felt the depression trying to reclaim him, but those incidents were already becoming less and less frequent. He reminded himself that he also needed to stand up to her more. He'd always done for her, fetching and carrying, but now he found himself often letting her walk all over him as well. He had to stop doing that, she wasn't going anywhere, not this time, so he didn't have to be so afraid of her walking out the door forever, that he let her treat him like a doormat. He'd been feisty and snarky in his day, he remembered, he had to get some of that attitude back.

He thought back to what Claire had said to him in private, when they'd dropped Andrew off for his weeks' stay. She'd told him that she saw nothing but happiness in his future, and that Shannon would be there for him, always. When she'd asked if he believed her, he'd answered in the affirmative, wanting to desperately. But he'd really meant it in that "I believe that you believe," kind of way, which, deep down, boiled down to the fact that he really didn't believe her at all. He suddenly realized that he'd come to accept it as the truth all on his own.

He looked down the hall again at his family. Growing up he'd always assumed he end up married with a few kids, but these two certainly weren't who he'd pictured living the rest of his life with. A nine-year-old boy with ESP and the mind of a thirty year old, and his own sister, someone who, no matter how much he'd wished differently, he'd always assumed would be forever unattainable. He loved them both desperately.

He put the box on the hall table and headed to the kitchen to start dinner.


End file.
